Departure

Hello to anyone who is reading!

            This is my first post and I want to start by thanking a few people who have been influential in my life and my decision making while I worked up the courage to leave on this adventure.  First and for most I must thank my family, without whom I would not be the person I am today.  To my mother and father, you are my eternal guides through this crazy thing we call life.  I can only hope that I grow into as caring and intelligent a person as you are.  Words cannot describe the love and respect that I have for you.  To my older sister, you have been a mentor and a piece of stable ground for me to depend on even when I have failed to be the brother I should be.  To my brother…what can I say?  You have been there from the beginning, you are the better part of me and I will always strive to be more like you.  To my friends—especially Jeremy, Ayelet, Martina, Lenny, Sterling, Sarah, Zak, Peter and anyone else who has been by me through some tough times—you mean more to me than you know.  To those who taught me—especially Donna Davenport, who has always believed in my ability to teach—you have shown me the power of education.  Finally, to Caitlin, you make me want to be a better person.  Without you I would have languished away my time in Oregon without doing anything.  You may never know, even though I will try to show you, how much you mean me.  Without the support and advice from these people—and many others who I will forget to mention, but who were nonetheless influential in my life—I would never have mustered the courage to leave my comfort zone.  So here I go!

           

Today I leave the USA for a year abroad.  I am departing with a challenge to myself to become a better person.  I know, without a doubt, that this undertaking will change me in ways that I could never begin to imagine.  I go with an understanding that this will be an adventure.  Some adventures are good…some are not.  Whatever the case is I will strive to take as much away from this experience as I can.  I dedicate myself to educating the people, both children and adults, whom I come into contact with as much as they will undoubtedly educate me.  For what it is worth this experience will be totally and completely mine.  I have left behind a loving family, loving friends and a woman who has shown me that I deserve to be better.  For them, I will be.

I have known that this day would come for months now, but somehow I have neglected to truly accept the fact that I will be away from everything I know for a full year.  I don’t even believe that as I sit in the terminal writing this post, looking at the plain that will fly me away from all that is familiar, I have truly accepted I am leaving.  Somewhere in my mind I am holding on to the idea that I will only be gone for a little while.  That I will return in a few weeks time to my family and friends, to the security that they have always offered.  I have never been one to be home sick, but then again I have never been away from home for so long.  I will miss them more than they, and even I, may know.

My mother recently confessed that she feels as if I am running away from them.  I am not.  The truth is that I long to be independent.  Not from my family, but rather from the economic burdens I have piled on them.  They have paid for my entire education and my life beyond and I have only repaid them by taking more.  This is my first attempt to truly be economically independent.  I know that if I stay in the United States I will only continue to take money from them without giving back.  Here and now that changes.  I refuse to rely on them for anything else than the love and support that they give without question.

So here’s to them.  Those who have stood by me all my life, to the people who have formed me into someone willing to take on the challenge of living in a place that will, undoubtedly, be more uncomfortable than anything I have ever experienced.  I leave a person who takes more than he gives…I will return someone who gives more than he takes.  In between is yet to be seen.  Keep checking in for updates and thank you for your interest.  I will miss you all.

-Henry (Hank) Young