My friends make fun of me for my obsession with my summer in Alaska. And I get it - what a strange experience to have such a fixation on.
Let me tell you how these feelings were borne.
My reputation has always been incredibly important to me. In my experience, love is rooted in respect, and I earned that respect by tirelessly working on things that I was passionate about. Community service, servant leadership, project creation. I was respected for the things I had managed to accomplish, and that respect was a feeling I equated to acceptance and love.
But in Alaska, nobody had a reputation.
I lived in a small employee neighborhood in a resort outside of Denali National Park, in the heart of Alaska. I was working alongside college graduates, high school drop outs, and Bulgarian engineers. It was the most diverse environment I had ever been exposed to, and nobody had any idea of where you were coming from.
At first, I was incredibly uncomfortable with this. I tried to prove my intelligence and education and experience, because those were the things I wanted to be identified by. I quickly learned, however, that experience was not what defined you in the Denali Park Village. Nobody cared where it was that you came from.
That was a scary thing for me - to not be known for the things I identified most with. I was alone in the middle of nowhere, with an unbuilt foundation of respect and an identity crisis.
Yet despite these things, I felt loved. Not just well liked - but an outpouring of sincere love from my new community. Not the love rooted in respect that I was familiar with, but a love rooted in appreciation for who I was right now, in the moment. A love for my kindness, bright attitude, and interest in learning a new language. I felt so deeply appreciated for the purest things about me, things that I was not expressing on purpose, that it made the things I had worked so hard for feel irrelevant.
It dramatically changed my perspective.
If I was a success, or I was a failure, it didn't matter. My neighbors and friends wanted to have a beer with me and complain about management and teach me important Bulgarian and Serbian words like "nasdrave!"
I view Alaska with rose colored glasses because that is how I felt everyone viewed me. From this experience, I have recognized that I am defined by more than the things I have done. Rather, I am defined by the things I am doing right now, in this moment.
This is the feeling that inspired me to postpone a stable career and pursue an uncertain and inspiring backpacking adventure. Let's hope this journey goes as well as my journey to Alaska!
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