So I leave for New York City tomorrow, and after spending some quality time with my best friend (and probably not enough sleep) I'm going to catch a cab to JFK airport at the crack of dawn (445am) to make it to the airport with enough time to get through customs and maybe relax a little before I take off.
Materially I'm prepared. I'm finishing up my 24 hour epic playlist with only 7 hours worth of music to go, I have 300 pages of a book I need to read, I'm all packed and I even have my outfit all set out for tomorrow (that never happens)...but emotionally I'm a mess. Not in the sense that I can't stop crying because I haven't cried once about this trip but in the sense that I don't know what to feel. People keep asking me if I'm excited, or if it's hit me yet and I really don't know. Sometimes I'm ecstatic and other times I'm freaking out but mainly I don't believe it.
Since I was accepted into the program I mentally made up a list of all the things that could go wrong between acceptance and actually arriving in Brazil (which is weird because I'm usually such an optimist). This is such an amazing opportunity and I've never done anything quite like it before that I didn't let myself get too excited until I had jumped through all the hurdles. Now that I've gotten through most of them I just mainly feel a mix of everything with no emotion shining stronger than the others. I keep telling people that it will hit me when I'm on the plane but in reality it may not be until I'm forced to speak in broken portuguese to get around town or when I try to order something vegetarian at a restaurant and the waiter doesn't understand the concept. Maybe I'll realize I'm in Brazil when it rains so hard it bends my flimsy umbrella beyond repair or when I'm standing in the middle of the jungle watching as a macaw lands inches away from my hand.
The truth is I've been in limbo, and while I've certainly had some good times back home I've spent a lot of time waiting for my life to begin again. I get anxious easily and staying in one place for too long puts me in a funk. I have a need to explore and get out of my comfort zone no matter how hard it may be in the beginning. I know Brazil will certainly fulfill this need for me and maybe that's partially why I don't believe it's real, it's almost as if it's too good to be true. The universe is throwing me a big bone here and I'm hesitant to take it for fear of something going wrong. Regardless, I leave tomorrow and somewhere inside I know the happiness is struggling to push its way ahead of the pack.
I promise I'm not trying to be a huge downer because I'm not feeling down at all but I recognize how this post could come across that way. I'm sleep deprived, clearly my mind goes strange places when that's the case. On that note...
Boa Noite!
No comments:
Post a Comment