Letting It All Go

“You want to go where?” 

The moment those words flew out of my mom’s mouth I knew this was going to take a lot of convincing. Traveling without my family is a super rare occurrence and going all the way to Europe wasn’t my mom’s favorite idea. Maybe this was because it wasn’t a typical study abroad that she had heard of, five countries in less than a month seemed like a lot. So when I signed up for this trip, I knew it was going to be something I have never experienced before. Not only had I never been to Europe, but when I go on family vacations, we don’t do very much adventuring. My family is laid back and loves to enjoy the sunshine and so I knew I was in for a much different experience. The schedule was jam packed, different places each day. With my detail-oriented mind, I loved the structure I thought I was getting myself into. The amount of history and culture you take in at once is just amazing but also very overwhelming. The schedule we were supposed to be on seemed to be very incorrect and I found myself quickly drowning in the experience rather than enjoying it. In a phone call home, my mom reminded me of my goal for the trip- to go with the flow. Something I struggle with in my daily life is letting go and just going with whatever is happening. I need a plan, a list and specific times of everything going on in a day. This is good for a lot of things in life, like schoolwork. Now for a trip that seemed to be all about showing up? Not so much. I needed to start just showing up and being present and seeing what could happen from there. Now this is way easier said than done so I definitely needed coping mechanisms to release my stress. I found writing thoughts and feelings down in my phone on the bus ride back or talking with my peers helped to digest the information better. I found that laughing and sitting and enjoying the day rather than looking at the clock made things much more fun. By connecting with my group, I actually began to enjoy each day and thought they went by so fast. By jumping in to anything anyone was doing, I could see why people liked to travel this way. There were days where I really felt like doing nothing but went out and explored anyways. The long bus rides quickly turned to super short, and every tour we went on I found myself wanting to learn more. I started creating a list of questions I had to look up later. It sounds silly, but I wanted to know more about each experience and had questions that I didn’t think of while I was on the tour. I even found myself forgetting to take photos and videos which was a main part of my class curriculum because I was truly enjoying the experience. I had finally let go. In doing so, I felt closer to the people on the trip than to anyone I have met before because of what we were experiencing and how we were experiencing it. My go with the flow attitude quickly became part of me. When I came back from the trip, I think my family was surprised to see that I had gone with the flow and completed a shift in myself that I have wanted to do forever. I found myself constantly reminding my parents are friends one of the best pieces of advice my professor gave me- 99% of life is just about showing up.