By William Lippincott

Earlier this summer, my father, his friend and I went off-roading to Sedona, Arizona. As I
stepped out of my father’s car, I was amazed by the red painted rocks lining the cliffs of the
mountainous Sedona. We were up on top of a mountain looking out, and we just sat there for a
while enjoying nature.

On August 21st, Sophia, Miranda, and my’s first day in Europe, I walked off the plane
directly onto the tarmac and gazed around at the mountains, ocean and massive islands
surrounding Croatia. I felt a completely different feeling in this moment than in Sedona that day.
Waves of anxiety and a towering fear stood before me. I was in Europe without the guidance and
resilience of my parents. Immediately I noticed that I was not appreciating nature in the same
way I always had before in my life, and this reality was frightfully inescapable to me. I was on
the other side of a massive planet, a side I had never been to before and a distance from my home
I have never matched. Thinking about the next four months obliterated my emotions and I began
stressing, wanting to go back to my home, family and friends.

Through the next few days, Sophia, Miranda and I were volunteering with Impactrip, a
wonderful and well managed organization. While we were there I met a ton of people who in a
very short time, I started to enjoy a lot. During this first week of volunteering, lodging and meals
were provided for us. Then, after this week we were a lot more proactive in all aspects of the
planning. Slowly, we began meeting more and more people who we became friends with, we
began booking our hostels, learning how to transport ourselves to places, and figuring out how to
budget with the money we planned for.

I have started believing that most of the reason why I was frightened by the lofty journey
ahead of me was simply because I was unsure of what exactly it would look like. I was unaware
of how difficult transporting ourselves from one town to the next would be, and to my surprise it
was slightly stressful but mainly easy. My fear of the unknown caused a greater amount of stress
and anxiety than actually doing all the things that I was dreading. Unfortunately, this fear
stemming from ignorance is a feeling that I have let turn into a habit throughout my life. I am
unsure of how much it could go away or grow into, but I plan on trying my hardest to ignore this
superficial stress and simply do what I am scared to do.

Recently, Sophia, Miranda, and I went to Lake Bled. While we were there, we hiked up a
mountain to Bled Castle which blessed us with a breathtaking view. As I looked out to the
greenish blue water, the beautiful, historical cathedral on an island in the middle of this lake, and
the houses scattered across the shoreline filled with leafy trees, part of me was still stressed, but I
could sense the other side of me feeling similarly to that lovely day in Sedona.