The worst part of ILTC was the days before and after the session. In the days leading up to ILTC I couldn’t stop talking about it, thinking about it, and dreaming about it. ILTC was stuck in my head and there was nothing else that I would rather have obsessed over. Throughout the plane ride and the drive to Perlman I couldn't contain my smile. It was the fact that within hours I would be with some of my best friends in a place that I knew I would find more, learn more, and grow more in. The hardest part wasn't anything that happened at ILTC—it was realizing how much it would come to mean to me.

There is something so magical about camp, especially ILTC:, coming together playing Jewish Geography, getting to know everyone in different ways, bridging language barriers, and comparing who has what store in their mall. Everything sounds like sunshine and rainbows, but the parts that were scary seemed to feel smaller and smaller as we got closer to Perlman and further from the airport.

One of my biggest fears when registering for ILTC was that no one outside of my region would understand what it meant to be building the Hawai’i Region from the ground up. That I would simply sit there listening to how well-off everyone’s region was – while I’m in the process of just beginning mine. I was scared that in the training we would have, it would target and focus on large groups of people; and they did, however, they did it in a way where each piece of knowledge or advice shared was also obtainable to me. One of our guest speakers, Simmy Kustanowitz, is a professional Showrunner. He came to camp and led a session on how to turn dreams into achievable goals. In his program we were sent in our Blueprint Group (leadership class) to go and start dreaming and setting goals. The next portion of the activity was for the group to narrow it to one person’s goals and go through the steps of how to achieve it with collaboration from everyone. Little did I know that the teens in my Blueprint would have my back, help and support me, and inspire me to take everything one step further. We ended up discussing my dream of creating the very first Regional Convention for the Hawai’i Region. We went step by step, each person sharing something from what they had done or noticed, and helping me connect it to my situation. For a simple fifteen minutes everyone came together over one goal, that wouldn’t benefit them, but that would help someone else get to experience and create something new, for more people just like them. This activity only took fifteen minutes but helped me dream of a brand new future, and build a brand new reality. 

This was the moment I think I fell deeper in love with ILTC. I’ve never had the opportunity to dream with others specifically just about Hawai’i BBYO, there was just something so special, a feeling of falling and trusting that my group would catch me. 

This was the moment I truly trusted them, the moment I felt seen for more than just being the girl from Hawai’i. 

Beyond that one moment, my blueprint leader would break down everything big, so I could reconstruct it in a way that I could also apply to my region. In a way that was more than just teaching me the basics of BBYO, that was teaching me how I could build from the Blueprint and create a foundation strong enough to support the region I am founding. 

So there goes that fear, all the stress for nothing. 

For a girl who has gone to three separate sleep-away camps I could say that my other fear, the worrisome one, comes true every single time. My fear is of leaving the people I love. Not in the sense of being homesick but a fear in the future of leaving the people who I spend every hour breathing, eating, and living with. I knew I would fall in love with some of these people. I knew there would be tears leaving camp and as I say goodbye to some, knowing that I may never see them again. But also happy tears full of excitement that I get to reunite in February for IC. Most of all, I feared the moment where I wouldn’t be right next to these people. 

While it isn’t necessarily scary, it is different. The same as any camp, convention, or meetup, a goodbye will follow, but it should be full of confidence to stay connected and have a tad bit of sadness knowing that you will have to go home. 

The further into the session of ILTC we got, the more I started to forget about the fear, the more I became immersed in a whole new world of just BBYO and friends. Yet as we started getting into our final week, the lasts were happening: last time being dorm of the day, last time going to Sha’charit, the last Shabbat, the last time going to sleep and waking up on a Tuesday morning at Perlman. But I realized that although these are the last of these moments, the future holds more, and as we got to the end of the session the eyes that had once been dry started to tear up. It was my recognition that ILTC became such a huge part of me that the fear was no longer in my brain but it became apparent that it was never for my brain — it was made for my heart.

Going into camp I was never scared to say hello, but I was scared to say goodbye, to fly back home across an ocean with thousands of miles between us. But that’s what camp is all about, bringing people together and creating connections that will be stronger than the distance, and inspiring us to reach past the stars and to set out on any challenge or distance that comes between us. 

While my fears were fears in the beginning they were worth every minute because I ended up gaining more than I could have ever imagined. ILTC was the program, but it really didn’t begin until the moment I left camp and thought, what next? What can I do on this plane ride? How can I take everything I just learned and use it to create the best year BBYO Hawai’i has ever seen? If not now, when?