This evening I fly across the world. To lands unknown, for time undecided.
I've spent the last few weeks skedaddling around the country saying goodbye to as many of my nearest and dearest as possible. I have never felt so lucky. Or so sick to my stomach.
Just as I have the best time with all my friends, who I've spent years getting to know, I am choosing to walk away from that. And walk very far away too. It's been in the works for ages -- I booked my flights in March, I started telling people I was going last year (so I could be held to account), I've been talking about it everyday for weeks. Yet as it comes down to it (T minus nine hours) I don't feel ready at all.
That might be partly down to the fact I haven't finished packing, but I think it's more because it's very hard to leave when you feel so happy. I don't know what's waiting for me across the seas, but here I know I am surrounded by laughter and love and people who know me completely. That certainty, that trust in what I have has been a long time coming too. I haven't always felt so secure in myself or the people I love. I've had to work to know it's true and heartfelt. So leaving just as I have come to that realisation seems extra absurd.
I have to remind myself how lucky I am to be leaving though, and of my own accord. Not everyone has the luxury of choosing to leave their home and even less people have the luxury of flying halfway round the world for leisure. I have the means, the network, the independence, and for that I'm very grateful.
And another reminder for myself too -- some of the people I am closest with now, I only met a few months ago. The friends who traipsed to see me yesterday are friends I met at University, my year abroad, didn't really get close to until after we'd graduated, and here they are, my closest confidants... who else will I have met in six weeks, months, years?
The love I feel for them all, and my family, is what makes it hard to leave. But how lucky am I that it's hard to say goodbye? It means I have something to come back to, people who will check in on me, that I can call if I'm feeling down. So, on the one hand, here I am, feeling slightly shaky that I'm saying goodbye for who knows how long and, on the other, feeling slightly shaky that the only thing in my future is possibility.
Not responsibility or struggles, just potential.
I studied Philip Larkin at sixth form and one of his lines has stuck with me since. Here is unfenced existence. The poem 'Here' is about Hull, the narrator journeying through it, somewhere I have never been. Larkin's words cross that boundary of familiarity, the feeling more important than the place.
It's what I'm holding on to as I pack, tuck away photographs, get messages of good luck and goodbye, double check I've got my passport. Yes, I'm flying away from friends and family and the familiar. No, it's not a bad thing. And really, it's not even goodbye. It's just temporary, a see you later.
I can come back whenever I feel like it. I'll fly home when my feet get tired and facetime isn't cutting it anymore. That's a long way away though.
For now I have everything to look forwards to. I just have to tell myself it's okay to be nervous, that it's a good thing to feel bad about leaving because it's a testament to what and who I'm leaving. The sick feeling has subsided slightly. My bag is packed, waiting by the front door.
I will miss home, the people who have made it, an incredible amount, enough to make my heart ache. That ache will keep me company as I step out into the world, unfenced.
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