Anxious Departure

I just spent the weekend with my older sister in Pittsburgh. It was incredibly fun, definitely some great bonding time--I'd venture as far as saying epic, even. Few things make me happier than spending time with Molly and being back in a city that I love.

I love her and Chris so, so very deeply and truly appreciate their presence in my life.

However, I've spent the last few days choking back some suffocating anxiety. The whole time I was having fun, I felt guilty about not spending my precious little time left in preparation for Malawi.

Even thinking of it now, my chest feels tight, my body feels weighed down by a great pressure, and time speeds up. My heart races in turn. I feel sort of irresponsible and unprepared but mostly just an unnamed fear, underneath it all. The unknown..

If I hadn't been at Molly's, if I'd been at home working on things instead, I'd have felt the same way. I will never feel/be prepared enough. Emotionally, knowledge-wise, professionally, spiritually, and especially in preparation of material goods, I can do a lot, but it never feels like enough.

I can manipulate my anxiety into motivation, and I can lessen it when I am focused and intentional, but it will always be a large part of my life. My identity and lens through which I understand the world exist in large part because of my anxious and sometimes nervous little psyche. None of this necessarily bothers me. It often helps me to be a more thoughtful, critical, and in a lot of ways, a better person; but, in times like these I'm having a hard time reigning in my fears, doubts, and don't feel like I can be an emotional rock for others.

I'm having a hard time dealing with the emotional side of leaving my life behind. I know this is a normal thing, but thinking about saying my goodbyes to my family hurts.

I'm thankful my other goodbyes have been spread out, but my time is coming to a close and there are many other loves who want and need that moment. I told most people when I got my acceptance that there would come a time for teary goodbyes, but that now was a time for celebration. Have we reached the hard part so soon?

Just because I've made this choice doesn't mean this will be any easier for me. I'm terrified that I won't find my way and won't find my place in community. It's hard to accept life and loved ones going on as normal without me, and it's scary knowing that at first I'll feel alone, isolated, and need to keep any self-doubt in check in order to survive.

I'm nervous about all of it and want to know everything before I step onto a plane at JFK, but I have to do something that is incredibly hard instead and blindly trust.

I've never had an experience so fully rooted in "leap of faith" "blind trust" thriving off of second hand knowledge, before as I've had with the Peace Corps. It has been the ultimate practice in patience and trust. The whole pre-process has been a year and a half with little to no information up until now. It's been an artful beginning to managing my anxiety and my need to plan and figure things out over the next 27 months.