"Finally see what it means to be living..."

In roughly 24 hours I will be arriving in Madrid. And I am strangely calm. Perhaps because I spent so much of the past week being so incredibly anxiety driven that there is nothing left to do but be calm. Even about the flight(s). This may not be true once I am actually onboard the plane, but for the moment in any case. You cure your patients of flying phobias all the time, I reminded my mother. Why can't you cure me?

She just gave me a look. "Because you won't listen to it coming from me, as your mother." I suppose I am always rather skeptical. But then she went on to make an observation that probably should have been obvious and yet I hadn't really thought of it like this. "I think it's about control, with you," she said. "Yes, you have your irrational fears that the plane might crash, but really I think it's about giving up all control. Which you hate to do. But once you commit to being in that plane, you don't have any choice. There's nothing you can do."

Maybe she's right. I made light of her comments at the time, but maybe she nailed it. I do have this compulsive need for options.

I can't believe how fast this week has gone by. Will the days fly like this once I'm in Oxford? I hope not. I want to enjoy my time for all its worth.

"You're getting exactly what you wanted," I was reminded earlier. "You've wanted this since you were a junior in high school; since you first started considering Sarah Lawrence." This is also true. And four years later, it's actually happening. I guess I never really thought it wouldn't.

This will be the longest time I have ever been away from home, from the majority of my safety nets, and can only be beneficial I'm sure. I'm slightly hesitant to say I'd like to reinvent myself--I know it's not that easily done; intrinsic qualities and all. But I'd like to come back stronger, more sure of myself & of what I want--personally and professionally. Almost five months of summer vacation, working & interning aside, will give you lots of time to think. I don't want to keep repeating the same patterns ad naseum because I'm too afraid to let go, cut ties, move on, definitively. At a certain point you just have to accept that people are the way they are, and stop hoping for a change that just isn't going to come. Even if in the smallest part of my mind, I'm still holding out for that. Well, I shouldn't. If only because my pride won't stand for it. I'm leaving for Europe; why am I still thinking about these things? Maybe tomorrow I will feel something akin to what Joan Didion once said she felt when flying: her cares just slipping away in the face of all that ocean.

I'm actually doing this. Something entirely new & terrifying & exhilarating. It's about time.