Walking around the empty camp, after two weeks of intense immersion with SAY counselors and campers leaves me filled with deep sense of melancholy.

I keep trying to make sense of everything. Sort everything in such a way that’s going to make sense. And into a way that I can attempt explain it to other people. What frustrates me most about immersion experiences, is that no one is ever going to understand what it felt like for me. Even the people I was with for experience, didn’t intake it in the same way I did.

It’s frustrating knowing I feel changed, but no one else is going to ever understand. No one is ever going to comprehend this amazing, beautiful experience and how it has affected my life. The change makes me feel completely different on the inside, while I still look the exact same on the outside.

After every immersion experience I have been through, I find myself completely emotionally overwhelmed by all of the thoughts and feelings, by the reflection and experience. Everything that happened was so jam-packed into two weeks, which didn’t really allow room for reflection. I think accomplished what I set out to accomplish when I came here. My goal was to be the absolute best that I could be for these kids.

I remember when I was a little kid and when adult would take special interest in me. When they would say things that made me feel special, I would practically glow with excitement. I would push myself more, and I couldn’t wait to make them proud of me again. But most of the time, I was just average, and no one would see me. I would just blend in and not not receive any particular attention for good or bad.  My goal has always been to make children feel as special, as that attention made me feel, when I was a child and to say the things that I think the children need to hear. Because children need to know that they’re important, smart, and that they can accomplish anything.

Now I am trying to figure out what happened, how I feel about what happened, and how it changed me. Because I have changed. It makes me think about people that I’ve known in the past and how I want to treat people in the future. I want to listen.  I want to give them time to speak, because everyone deserves to be listened to. Everyone deserves to be heard.

-a wanderer-