So this day three weeks exactly I will be stepping off the plane and into a very long line for customs to start my new life all on my own in Toronto. And about an hour ago I had my first major freakout about leaving.
I wrote last week about my family and blah, blah, blah all that depressing serious stuff. But tonight, not one hour ago, I did a dry packing run and tried to fit some shoes in a suitcase. They did not fit and I absolutely lost my mind. I admit, I cried a bit and threw a lovely ankle boot across the room. Complete temper tantrum meltdown. And I was pretty much fine until today (apart from the stress dreams I talked about last week), just kind of cruising along, being uber calm and blasé about everything. But the fact I couldn’t fit some shoes in a case seemed to have cracked some invisible wall around me. I am now a mess of nerves and nausea.
Guys, I have so much stuff. I don’t know how I accumulated so much and the thought of having to decide and chose what to bring with me, pack up my entire life into two cases is freaking me out – majorly. The fact that I won’t be able to just run to my room and grab whatever is really jarring to me. After five years of living away from home from the ages of 17 to 22 I obviously got used to not having everything around me, but then again I was only in Dublin. A train away. And when I moved back to my family home where everything I owned was right there, it was a nice feeling.
My amateur inner psychologist is telling me that it’s not the possessions I will miss, but the familiarity of home. Just being completely comfortable somewhere and not having to worry. But now I’m going to be on a different continent, a different time zone and completely on my own. I don’t know a soul in Toronto, not one person and it was me who decided to go on my own and not follow friends to London or Australia. I wanted to do this on my own, but I’m still allowed to freak out a bit, right?
This is a list my mother made me, she is hiding the fact she is freaking out about me going rather well but it cracks every now and then, more and more lately though.
This list, is what in her opinion I should be bringing with me and this does not include all my clothes and shoes but other “essentials” I will need. It’s just not gonna happen. Unless I hire a sherpa and a donkey, half this stuff is not making the cut, because I am my own donkey and I will be the one traipsing around with everything. But I’m sitting here right now, and my room has turned into a maze. A maze made up of piles of clothes and assorted rubbish that I’m deciding should I throw away or keep or bring with me. Trying to hack my life up so it will fit into two suitcases.
I have waited so long to go, sacrificed nights out, quit one terrible internship and passed up the offer of a really cool one so I could save money to go to Canada. It’s what I’ve wanted for the past 18 months. But now that it’s actually real and actually happening and after my emotional wall cracking moment tonight, I am getting a unpleasant tingly feeling in my stomach. I still want to go, and I’m still so excited but now I feel like there’s a part of my brain that is rebelling against it and me not being able to fit my shoes into a case is what has made that part of my brain start drowning out all the good stuff I know will happen when I get over there.
Does anyone have any advice for it? Or is it just something that happens to every prospective emigrant? Just a dawning realisation that your leaving everything familiar, your leaving whatever home you have and joining that customs line with two suitcases and the hope you don’t fuck everything up.
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