Full Disclosure

Good morning, everyone! I am writing you all from the lovely Denver, Colorado as I wait for Da Laina to wake up so we can get some breakfast.  I am hoping for pancakes, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

I leave in 10 days (including today and including the day I leave) and I have some thoughts on that, so I figured it was time for another blog post.  As you can see, I titled this “Full Disclosure” and that is because I am pretty terrified. And overwhelmed.  I have been working on trying to minimize my study abroad anxiety with my mom though, and she keeps telling me to name what is worrying me.  The Unknown.  That is what is worrying me.  I capitalized it to give it more importance and to make it sound more ominous, which is fitting because in the German language nouns are capitalized to differentiate them from other words and phrases.  Anyway, back to The Unknown.  Not exactly an easy fear to overcome because it is inherently not-understandable due to the fact that I won’t know what The Unknown holds until it is known.

I know, I know, I am being so overdramatic; it is part of my charm.  But really, I am pretty nervous for my upcoming travels.  Going abroad, especially for a full year, is pretty much the first big thing I have ever done completely on my own.  Every other time I have traveled or faced a new experience, I had someone with me.  My vacations always included family, I went to college with my best bud Meg, and even when I flew to Florida alone at the age of 13, I wasn’t really experiencing anything new because I had already lived there.  It’s not that I think I am incapable of doing things on my own.  I know I am fully capable.  But the enormity of what I am doing has really struck me because this is an extreme test of my independence AND I am testing my independence auf Deutsch–in another language.  What can I say? I can never make things too easy for myself.

Now I know what you are thinking.  You’re like, “But Meghan, you will be staying with your Aunt for the first month in Germany so you won’t REALLY be alone.”  And you would be correct in thinking that.  But my Aunt is super fluent in German and I am super not fluent in German so I am still going to have to struggle and force myself to practice and get better.  And that is something only I can do.  Unfortunately, my Aunt Linda cannot do that for me, LOL.

Besides The Unknown, my other big fear is that I am not prepared enough in terms of my language abilities.  I keep imagining a scenario where someone speaks to me in German, and I understand what they are saying.  But when I go to reply, I open my mouth and no German comes out.  And then I start panicking and no English comes out either and then I spontaneously combust.  I know that won’t happen, because humans don’t spontaneously combust these days, but I have always had an overactive imagination, especially when I am stressed.

I probably just gave you way more information about the innerworkings of my brain than you ever wanted, but to be fair the title of this post *is* Full Disclosure, so that should have been your warning.  And despite all of my fears, I have kind of reached a calm sense of assuredness in the past couple of days.  I honestly do not know where it came from but I just have a feeling that things are going to be ok, even if I do make a fool of myself in front of family and the entire country of Germany.  For those of you who are my close friends, you know I have a strong sense of intuition and I trust it more than I trust my stress-riddled brain, so I am feeling confident.  This is super cliché, but I know I am going to do so much growing in my time abroad and I cannot wait to come back even more confident and mature than I am now.

I have seen a quote from Amy Poehler all over the place for the past couple of days and I think it is God trying to give me a sign:

“Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. Doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that- that’s what life is. You might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that’s really special and if you’re not good, who cares? You tried something. Now you know something about yourself.”

I am definitely not ready.  There are a thousand things I could do between now and when I leave that could make me more ready, and I could always make excuses to find more time before leaving.  I could put this off and justify it in hundreds of ways.  But knowing that I am not ready, and not knowing if I am going to succeed, those are the things that make me want to do this more than ever.  I might epically fail, but at least it will be a spectacular flop and a great story.  And at least I will have tried something.  And hopefully, at the end of this journey, I will know something new about myself.

Thanks for reading my thoughts and have a great weekend.  I’ll write again soon.

-Meghan