“I’m panicking.”
This is what I disclosed to my closest friends while I packed up as much of my life as could fit in two suitcases and a backpack.
Over the last 8 years, I have spent extensive amount of time abroad for both, personal travels and academic purposes, but never had I felt as much uncertainty as I did this time.
This is likely due to the fact that I am moving for 2 years, and potentially (hopefully), indefinitely.
Moving across the world during Covid definitely sounds appealing, especially after most of us spent such a long time quarantined in our homes. I have been in desperate need of new adventures, new scenery, and new people.
It does, however, become less appealing when you can’t find your bachelor’s diploma the morning you have to leave, or when your airline almost doesn’t let you check-in because the clinic decided to give you the results of your Covid test in a handwritten print out (digital copies are the way to go if you are traveling FYI), or when you are staring intensely at the luggage scale praying that your suitcases do not go over the weight limit. Or maybe it’s the frustration of seeing people remove their masks on the plane and never put them back on, or the fact that I have to strategize when I will eat so that I don’t take off my mask while people around me have theirs off.
Logistics, logistics, logistics. As if moving without a global pandemic didn’t already require enough of them.
Despite the stress of all these things (that I realize are mostly out of my control), I know that my decision to leave is the best thing I have ever done for myself.
And yet knowing this, I am still…panicking.
But that doesn’t mean I have to get on the next plane back, and it doesn’t mean that I’ve made the wrong decision.
If I’ve learned anything from the formative experiences that have preceded this move, it’s that we can only grow if we commit to these growing pains. They’re one of the most natural parts of life, and once they subside, you are infinitely grateful for the decisions that led to any given season of growth.
I realize that these things are easier said than done, but that doesn’t change their inherent truth, at least in my experience.
My philosophy is that the appropriate approach to any new endeavor or journey is one where the individual is humble but determined.
There is a saying in Spanish that my mom used to say to me, that can be translated as:
Don’t try to eat the world in one big mouthful.
“No te quieras comer el mundo en un bocado”
Accepting that you realistically can’t eat the world in one mouthful (or take on more than you can handle) is part of knowing who you are, your place in the cosmic world, in your social environments, and what your realistic limits are: Humility.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t try to eat the world in small, chewable, bites: Determined.
Despite my extensive preparations for this trip, as I board my plane, part of me panics because I am human, and my success (& happiness) cannot realistically be guaranteed: Humility.
Regardless, I am committed to making a life for myself that I am proud of. So, I push past the panic, I get on the plane, and I don’t look back: Determined.