Tldr: The title.
A lot of my friends and my friends’ friends and people my age I’ve met have gushed about “going abroad”. They talked about how much they grew and changed and learned about themselves, and who doesn’t want that? It sounds as easy as tapping an unused limitless credit card. “Free growth spurt!! To anyone who wants it!!”
I’ll be the first to say I want a growth spurt. There’s so much I want to do and change about the world, and learning through seeing more of the world will only help me make those changes. More that the cultural fluency, I want to be able to place myself humbly in this world and remind myself that while I am but dot, I can make a mosaic out of the world by making it my own game of “connect the dots”. I want to be a connector; in today’s language, that means a pacifist, peacemaker, conflict-resolver and rational storyteller.
So I planned myself a nice long “ideal” summer abroad experience which promises to change so much for me and about me. I spent nine months cold-emailing, searching for opportunities on the internet and taking Zoom calls at late hours to accommodate time zones. When the plans became settled and the flights booked, I was so excited that my vision had become a reality. I thought I’d overcome the biggest hurdles in my abroad journey; now nothing was going to stop me from having my growth spurt.
Except now, I’m petrified about going. And it feels like it’s stopping me before I’ve even finished packing.
I started feeling this apprehension two months before my flight date (yes, I’m the early panick-er). I felt homesick and feared missing my parents even though home and my parents have been right in front of me this whole time.
To address how I’ve been feeling, I thought I could suppress my emotions and toughen up by distracting myself. I got addicted to my social media algorithms even when they had nothing of my interest and was feeling very unmotivated. There were slivers of moments when I let my emotions show and in those moments, I turned to my family. But no matter what words they used, my fear still wasn’t completely absolved.
I didn’t expect them to resolve all of my apprehension, but I just didn’t expect that I would feel such a potent angst over this wonderful opportunity I wanted for so long. My own fears, my self-created barriers, are the last thing I’d have anticipated having to fight this close to my departure date. I’ve expressed my concerns to my family so many times that they are telling me different permutations of the same message and personal stories of big changes they experienced in their lives. I know what they are going to tell me before they open their mouth, and I know they are right. Yet my fear isn’t not going away.
My pain and fear feels like a lightly scored piece of paper; I can see and identify it, but it’s very hard to rip it cleanly. And at the same time I know that I won’t be able to rip; I’m not completely okay.
While in this metaphorical limbo, quotes like these come to mind: “Good things require fear”, “Change is a catalyst to the person you want to become”, “go discover yourself; you never know what you’ll find”. And you know what, they aren’t making it go away.
There’s only one quote that is helping me lately: “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow”.” I’m trying to accept that even though I’m scared, I can do this in spite of my fears. Except, this whole “facing your fears” thing is over-glamourized. I’m feeling nothing but discomfort for someone who’s supposed to be tackling and embracing feelings the way a champion does.
Hence, the theme of my week-before-departure is “I don’t want to go”.
Here’s to hoping that I feel this much pain when it comes time to leave my summer destination as I currently feel about leaving my home.
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