- Gabi

Alaska Is...

       the combination of flashbacks to good times with old friends and the opportunity to create new ones. Each person makes what they wish out of the experience, but for me, the trip has given memories and friends that will be very hard to let go.

Final Reflections

        As my third Alaska trip winds down to a noticeable end, I find myself looking back at all the weeks that seemed to rush by as if the world were running out of time. It is also at this moment that I find myself telling stories to this year’s participants about memories of past trips, stories that come back in a flash just by simply passing or stopping at a certain spot. To me, this is what Alaska has become; it is a place where I meet or reunite with people who become hard to let go of, and live moments that equally become a struggle to part from.
       This year’s trip has put me in many different situations; some that helped my leadership, some that taught me a lesson, and many that became part of those memorable times that I will always love to talk about. Now, as I sit in this room, faced with a duffel bag that I’ve lived from for the past three weeks, I am forced to also face that these three weeks have come to their end. It’s tough. It’s tough to see my dirty sweatpants, covered in mud from helping a friend hike up and down a lake while she is recovering from surgery, and realize that these pants won’t get this dirty again for a while. It’s almost sad – yes, sad – to pack away my beaten-up, ripped jeans, with holes and dirt that were put there by all the times that I careless sat wherever convenient, since it couldn’t matter less what I looked like, and it’s sad to know that these pants will retire once I get home.
       It is through packing all my belongings that I am reminded of what Alaska means. We are all supposed to find words and describe the significance behind this three-week adventure, but it is so much easier to look at all my stuff and see for yourself what it means. Simply open my rain coat pocket and find a heart-shaped rock that a van member gave me; check my journal to find the numerous fish that I have received, which are the Alaskan way of saying thank you or sharing a compliment; or just ask to look through my 800 pictures, which were my attempt to capture everything that I wanted to remember – which as one can tell, was everything that happened.
       So, as I sit in this plane heading back home, already having shed the tears that swelled under my eyes after realizing that these three weeks that I waited all year for were almost over, I decided to truce myself. I have decided that I will be back to visit this place that I have come to love so much, I will. This is what the trip has tried to teach us all along; that we can, we will. The backs of our sweatshirts all say so, with the phrase “I WILL” printed right under all our signatures, and since I have come to believe in the trip so much, it would be completely hypocritical of me to not follow the saying. So, even though it’s sad to be leaving, this isn’t my goodbye to Alaska. I will be back someday to look at the perfect background that created some perfect memories for me. At this point, it’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of when I WILL return.