Sunday, July 5, 2009

The Night Before...

Well, this is it... that night I knew would sneak up on me: the night before I leave home. Tomorrow I'm taking a flight at 9:30am from Albany to Philadephia for my "Staging" event, which is basically a 2-day orientation/introduction, as well as when we get the necessary vaccinations and whatnot. Not really looking forward to that, but I suppose it's preferable to a case of malaria or yellow fever or some other such tropical disease.
The official flight to Guinea is on July 8th...

I can't really describe how I feel right now. It doesn't seem real. I remember the way I felt before leaving home for college; a mix of excitement and nerves. I would drive around Chatham looking at everything as if I would never see it again; as if it would disappear in my absence or something like that. Going away for a few months seemed overwhelming, and here I am now 5 years later leaving the country for 2 years, and I feel nothing like that. I feel like it's all some kind of dream or something... I have no idea when the reality of what I'm doing will set in. Probably on the plane to Guinea. Maybe tomorrow night when I realize I won't be sleeping in my own bed for a looonng time... maybe it's because there are so many unknowns surrounding my near future that my brain can't process all the speculation. For now I'm just trying to relax and stop worrying that I've packed too much or that I'm going to forget something and not realize it until it's the only thing I want in the universe and it's a million miles away back home. AHH!!!!!

Either way, today was a rough day. Goodbyes are never easy. Riding home on the train from NYC, I had to remind myself several times that I did indeed choose to do this, and that despite that horrible twisted feeling of missing someone you love (my boyfriend Emmanuel), I wouldn't want to be doing anything else with my life right now. This will be the adventure of a lifetime. I've committed myself to putting everything I possibly can into this challenge, and I intend to do just that.

So begins the next chapter of my life...

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