Taking off

The engine was buzzing. The person next to me was already sleeping. And I’m still crying, even two weeks after take-off.

Of course I’ve said goodbyes before: to friends who’ve moved across the country and to others who’ve moved farther. But I’ve never really been the one to leave. At least not this far, for this long.

Indefinitely. That’s the answer I’ve been giving people as to how long I’ll be across the pond. Realistically my visa is only good for two years, but who’s to say I won’t be somewhere else once that time comes. Who’s to say I won’t fall flat on my face and be back home broke in a couple months? So, indefinitely it is. It’s a scary word though. Overwhelming in its ambiguity.

“Take it day by day,” people keep saying. I never understood how to live like that before leaving home. I always had a job, an idea, a plan. Not this time.

I must say, living day to day is easier when you really have to. You can’t think about next week because you don’t even really know where you’re going to be. It is pretty liberating when I think about it, but I still worry a lot. Uncertainty and I have never gotten along well, but now it seems like apprehension is my only friend (along with Janine, my travel buddy).

I feel like a real twit for being so nervous about our trip. How many people have done this and been successful? Especially when they have people who love them to offer support. So many. I think about the people who go places, wherever they want, with no one behind them and nothing but a strong sense of adventure and what they want out of life. And they kick ass. What do I really have to be sad or worried about?

So that brings me here then. About two weeks in, with a best friend by my side, sitting in a hostel in Dublin, eating an orange for lunch, about to head to the airport on a plane out to London. All is well, minus the horrid cold we both picked up—it’s hard to make friends in hostels when you keep everyone awake with your wheezing night after night. But we’ll look back and laugh I’m sure. In a few months we’ll look back and laugh about all the self-doubt, the insecurities about making friends, and the days we chose beers over lunches. I hope we do, anyway.

Tori