today ten years ago

It's so weird for me to think it was ten years ago i set out for the holy land. I actually left for Jerusalem on the 9th, but technically arrived there on the 10th in 1996. It wasn't a hard decision to go. What an awesome experience I would have, but when the time came it was difficult to leave my friends and loved ones.
My boyfriend at the time, aka husband now, made this book for me to read on my journey. I remember on the plane sitting next to a girl I didn't know, who would later become a great friend, with tears in my eyes reading the words he had written to me over the last few months. So priceless to me.

These are the journals I kept while I was gone. The one advice I had received from someone who had already gone was to write in a journal everyday. I did and it was the best thing I could have done. These books are full of my thoughts, emotions, and experiences that I can never get back, and could realistically never remember. It is a snap shot of who I was at twenty on my own experiencing the world. I plan to read my journal throughout the next 6 months, a day at a time. I hope to learn more about myself and how much I have changed from the young naive girl I once was.