Yes, they did give me a packing list, a list of things I need to accomplish before I leave, and a broad idea of what I will be doing for the next nine months. I have checked off items from that list and I have imagined my self countless times doing any sort of activity that I might be doing next year. Yet, there’s no real way to prepare for what is to come.
I find my self daydreaming over and over again what my new life is going to be, what I will become afterwards. Questions like what does the air smell like there? How will I feel once I get on the plane? How will I greet the family that I will be living with for the next few months? Who will I be when I come back? Is there such thing as “coming back,” or will the people and the places that I leave change just as much as I have. Will I have changed so much that even the things that have not been altered seem different to me? Change is the only constant in life, and yet we are never prepared for it.
My mom asked me today as we walked on the beach if I felt prepared and strong enough to leave.. I looked at her, and said that I was. Then I thought again..am I? Am I really ready and strong enough to leave it all behind? Maybe I am not, but I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter If I am or not. Isn’t that the point of going away to a new country, with new people, a new language miles away from my old life, anyway? In a way I am unprepared, that I don’t know what to expect, that perhaps I am not strong enough to face all the things that I am about to face. That I will be challenged, that I will be given the opportunity to grow in every aspect of my life.
I know I will be. Once I take the leap, once I fall, once I figure out how to stand by my self; then I will be prepared and then I will be strong enough, and when that happens it will be time to take yet another leap. Until then I’ll have to learn how to swim in new waters and fly with new winds.
