IN 13 DAYS AND 20 HOURS I’LL BE ON A PLANE..

Pre-travel anxieties. 

…by myself to England, a country I had been dreaming of living in for years, and the culture I’ve fallen in love with from the outside. Heart beating miles an hour at the tilt of the aircraft, being anxious about absolutely nothing. I’ll shed a tear or two thinking about how much my family loves me and how I won’t see them for 8 months, how my brothers and I won’t be exchanging stories about our significant others personally for a while and how I’ll be distant from my mother’s cooking and my dad’s Dad Jokes. I’ll shed two more tears thinking about my caring friends back at York who never fail to make me feel loved and wanted with the endless connections through cell phone social media apps and weird noises (you guys know who you are…). I’ll shed the rest thinking about how I forgot my damn earbuds on the kitchen counter, which I could’ve easily remembered if I wasn’t so flustered and rushed by my lack of preparation.

Like a friend once said to me, “It’s not goodbye…it’s a ‘See ya later’!” He’s right, there’s nothing to be sad about. Once I settle into the new land, I’ll be more ecstatic than ever as I finally embark on one of the most epic journeys I’ll ever go on. This is it. I am 21 years old and this is THAT trip that people say they go on when they’re young to “discover themselves”.

Sorry if you thought that this was going to be more of a technical blog, informing you about what steps to take in order to go through with an exchange programme. You’re going to have to get used to the emotional nature my words spring from…because, dammit…I HAVE FEELINGS. I’m all about looking at the world through eyes than can see things in a beautiful way. It may not be realistic, but it’s definitely not unrealistic.

I’ve been preparing for this exchange for over a year now, from attending my first meeting at York University’s Global Cafe, to signing up with my exchange account with the schools I was interested in, applying for the program as well as the University of Leeds itself, to receiving that e-mail in bed on a Winter morning in January of 2013, jumping and screaming as I ran into my roommates room not remembering a more exciting moment, to going through the gruelling process of applying for a UK Visa and the minor anxieties that went with it. It is less than 2 weeks away until my departure and I’m basically going through minor packing details and monetary situations as well as the residence and travelling situation.

I may or may not be going through some anxieties, and this blog may or may not be in existence as a result of said anxieties. I actually just received my flu shot today. It was the first needle after getting a blood test done in summer of 2013 which resulted in me convulsing in the chair and being permanently traumatized. The dizziness that ensued my flu shot was from my minor, quiet and inner panic attack which led me to think, “What if I faint on the plane because I’m THAT nervous?” Well, shit. That’s where I play it by ear, and if I’m fucked, I guess I’m fucked.

Since I moved back from Paris in August of 2009 after being there for 6 months, I’ve so desperately wanted to move back to Europe. Before that, I had never felt like a stuck young adult who felt like she needed to go out and explore the world. I always said I had time to find myself and because being a kid had little to no expectations. My ambitions consisted of being popular, setting out to marry Joe Jonas and making sure I didn’t spend another year in high school because only weird people did that (or so I thought).

I am now in my 4th year of university, and since my 2nd year at York I’ve felt a little stuck as a person. In first year, I changed tremendously as a person. I was 18, I moved out on my own, I made new friends and was in a completely new place that I was barely familiar with, and hell, I had only had my first kiss that year, so to make out with more boys than I could count on my hand was a huge boost to my ego (not that I even had much to begin with). University was a shitshow, and especially with Winters College being considered the party college of the school, I was loving it. Thursdays, Fridays AND Saturdays and I don’t even know how much of my OSAP was going towards partying and the like. It was a whole new world I was so excited to be in, finally letting loose. Second year rolled around, and things began to slow down. I wasn’t going out as much, I wasn’t seeing anyone, and I had already lived in Toronto for a year now. Moving into the village was a little exciting, as well as having my own room. With the years adding on, 3rd and 4th, my roommates and I built adult expectations upon ourselves, somewhat ending the shitshowness of university, and essentially became middle-aged women who went to the gym, enjoyed grocery shopping and liked to stay in on Friday nights philosophizing on which kind of detergent we should use.

I had enough of virtually living out my dream, endlessly reblogging photos of London, Paris, Amsterdam, Germany, you name it. The architecture, the food, the culture, the MEN. I couldn’t live in North America anymore. It felt dull to me. If I wanted to appreciate life again, I needed to do something big for myself. This seemed to be the answer.

I obviously can’t tell if I’m going to have the best time of my life because I can’t tell the future. Everyone is always saying, “Oh my god, you’re gonna have SO much fun!” to which I reply with, “Yeah I can only hope so!” I can only promise to do the best I can to experience, take as many beautiful photos as I can, and to productively add to my status as a “World Citizen” as my dad likes to say.

So do me a favour and hope that I don’t faint at the anxiety that I’ll have as I take off on my journey alone, cool?