Less Than 24 Hours to Go

I leave tomorrow. TOMORROW. 

Holy cannoli.

I can't wrap my brain around the fact that this is actually happening. This time tomorrow, I'll be on a plane. And that plane will be leaving the country. With me on it. 

I am equal parts bouncing-off-the-walls excited and fall-down-in-a-dead-faint terrified. I can't wait to be on my way, but at the same time, I wish the time would pass just a bit more slowly today. I'm so ready to go, but I'm so not ready to leave.

But then again, if I waited until I felt ready to leave, I'd never go. 

This trip is a big ol' step outside of my comfort zone: I'll be going places I've never been, where they speak languages I don't know, and I'll be doing it almost exclusively solo. I'll be eating foods I've never tried, talking to people I don't know, and navigating transportation systems that I've never used. I'm doing almost all of it by myself, which means that the pressure's on me; for the most part, I won't have someone else to rely on for figuring things out. It's all me.

It's rather stressful, that kind of responsibility. But it's also very freeing: I get to decide where I want to go, what I want to do, what I want to eat, and when and how I want to do it all. I can plan out what I want to do each day, and then throw away all those plans to act on any whims that may strike me.

That's what I'm most excited for about this trip: it's going to be a lot of new experiences, and it's going to be a lot of tuning in to myself, something that I feel like I haven't had a whole lot of time to do over the last few years (what with working and getting a degree and all that).

All right, enough navel-gazing for now.

Next time I post, I'll be in Europe!

Birthday Girl out.