Exciting
Terrifying
Surreal

I feel a bit like I’m on a see-saw.

On one side is total peace. The peace that comes from accumulating courtesies and coincidences that make it feel like the entirety of time and space and Oprah are all conspiring for me to go on this epic quest.

Things like…

“randomly” running into a mom & daughter from Melbourne a few weeks after committing to the idea that I was going to move to Australia who now, months later, have happily offered to pick me up from the airport.

or, stressing about trying to sort out my Auckland layover and having a woman I’ve never formally “met” basically plan the entire thing for me with a level of detail befitting her 7 years working in Visitor Information Centre.

or, having another woman offer to turn my American résumé into a few different versions of an Aussie CV.

or, being told by my hostel that they will split my booking for me should I choose to go on my Great Ocean Road trip early.

I’ve already gotten so much more than I could have expected or thought to ask for from sources that I could have never anticipated. (I wasn’t even going to Melbourne when I met them!)

I feel like I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing.

But then, I let go of my helium balloon of happy thoughts and the gravity of reality pulls me down and I think

oh my god

I’m about to move almost 8,000 miles away

with no friends*
(*language really needs to catch up to technology when it comes to people you meet on online who are not catfishing you)

no job lined up

no place to live after the first week

who does this WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING

why can’t I be a normal fixed life person??

The worries of
“Will I find a place or will I be homeless?”
“Will I find a job or run out of money and have to come home?”
“Will I have any friends to spend my birthday with in just over a month?” 
“Can I really survive a year without good Mexican food???”
come bubbling up.

And then I remember everything that has happened to get me to this point. All of the dominoes that have fallen perfectly into place. I think about the fact that I’ve done this before and that every time I imagine not doing it, in spite of the weight of my concerns, the actual picture in my mind turns grey and stops moving, and my heart feels like it has no blood in it. I think about how nothing feels worse than that–not even fear.
I also think about the fact that I bought a roundtrip ticket.

And the peace comes back.

This is happening.
This is really happening.