I’m leaving home for my four month trip tomorrow.
I’ve been scared about this trip for two months, and I focused my last blog on all of the unresolved fear I have around my journey. So, how am I doing now?
I can report to you that, on the literal eve or my departure, I am either numb or so chronically nervous that I can’t register the fact that I’m nervous.
But I’m definitely not buzzing with excitement; I’m definitely not okay.
I was talking to me sister about my fear (again) and she asked me: “what exactly are you afraid of?” And in my mind, a voice shot back “the worst-of-the-worst happening”.
I’ll be so isolated that I lose my zest for life
I won’t be able to take care of myself and lose all the progress I’ve made in trying to prioritize myself this year
I’ll get lost with no one to call
Pinpointing what specifically I’m afraid of helped me realize that I’m ruining a really great opportunity for fear of the unknown and not wanting to leave something comfortable.
But it’s strange that I’ve been so emotionally impacted. It has bogged down everything I’ve done for the past month. I haven’t hit a wall this forcefully in a long time.
And then yesterday, I came across this magical term:
“Little Deaths“
and it has changed something in me.
The idea of “little deaths” is that when you feel deeply moved by a change in your life, that change is one you register as a form of death.
At first, the term felt like another instance of contemporary dilution of a heavy term (think: the use of the phrase “haha, you’re so retarded” as a response to a friend’s simple mishap, or “I would kill myself” to describe a feeling of embarrassment). I’ve found the description of experiencing little deaths to be an accurate depiction of how I feel.
When changes crop up in your life, it represents the death of one facet of your reality or a fraction of your world. What you feel when you process change is grieving the loss of what was. In these situations, it can be hard to welcome a change while processing your grief.
Putting a name to the emotion helped me rationalize exactly why I was bothered. Weirdly, telling myself I’m “grieving” makes me take my emotions more seriously than if I just said I’m in a “rut” or am feeling “low”.
So, this is what I’m processing. I’m almost finding it tragic that I’m just starting to precisely work out my emotions the day before I leave. Am I too late? What if I’ve coordinated this whole experience and I’ve failed to adequately prepare myself for? What if this experience will just pass my by, it will be something that just happens to me?
Being frank, it’s entirely in my hands how much I take away from this experience. Wether I rise to the occasion even if it means eating the frog or wether I sit down and cry, submitting myself to the turbulence of my heart.
Eating the frog right now is just getting through to tomorrow. More updates to come.
<3
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