You know that feeling that you get when you’re going up the
hill of a roller coaster? It’s like your stomach is knotted with the
anticipation and your nerves are all frazzled and making your heart beat a
little fast. You have to keep taking deep breaths to ground yourself, because
YOU are the one who was SO excited to go on the ride. And then the cart reaches
the peak and you plunge forward so fast that you leave all feeling behind and
can only concentrate on the thrill.
Well, I’m still waiting for that last part.
Everything
I haven’t been nervous for yet is there right now; what if something’s wrong
with the plane and I don’t get there in time, what if I don’t like my roommates
or make any friends there, or what if they don’t like me? What if I dislike my
classes or professors or they are really hard for me? What if my Compartments
Syndrome comes back and its painful to walk too far, or what if my surgery made
it worse?
And then I
think, I AM GOING TO BE IN ROME TOMORROW. It doesn’t matter how scary it seems
right now because I know I can tough it through anything. Once I get settled
in, have time to adjust to the culture a little bit, and don’t feel lost every
time I take two steps, then the experience is only what I make of it. My knots
will go away, and my worries will either go away or challenge me to face them.
It’s natural to be nervous while stepping this far out of my comfort zone –
I’ve never lived in a city or even been out of the country!
I’ll just
take this one day at a time. Today, I woke up, left my best friend’s house, met
my dad in Mt. Pleasant, drove to the Detroit Airport, checked in, and am now
waiting to board my first connection to Amsterdam! I leave in 1 hour and 15
minutes. The journey begins!
Observation of the day: people in an airport are very
interesting. Everyone has a different reason for traveling, a different
destination, a different mindset and body language, and a million different
things in their luggage.
