This Is How It Starts

This is how it starts. Three days away and unpacked, which will be a different story in a matter of hours. Then I will have broken open the freshly-bought luggage and begun to plan the best way to organize shoes and shorts, shirts and pants, wires and travel-sized toiletries. It will be a challenge, but the time has finally come. London is steadily approaching, and what truly seems like a dream will become ridiculously real as I board that plane on Tuesday and arrive in London early the next morning.

How this really started is a little over three months ago. As our friends talked about Teaching for America, graduate schools, or first jobs, Matt and I were not so confident with our future. We were as bewildered as most English Writing majors most likely are, so we sought an alternative route: the post-college escape from America to find ourselves and/or have an incredible adventure that parents will deem "life experience" when explaining to their adult peers. It took shape after a suggestion by the lovely Christine Dougan about traveling abroad and working.

Enter BUNAC (aka our ticket out). After some research, Matt and I quickly said, "Yes, let's do this. Let's get the hell out of here and have an adventure." And that's what we hope to do. When I say "get the hell out," I am not necessarily suggesting a term of escape; more of a purging of stress, a much needed six-month departure from the pressure to know our future after four years of learning that we have no idea what we want to do yet. And when I say "adventure," I use the term to encapsulate the fact that we do not know just what's going to happen.

We have our passports, our work visas, and a program's worth of assistance, but we do not have definite answers to those repetitive questions: "What's your job going to be? Where are you going to live? You know London is super expensive, right?"

Check back here in about two weeks.

picture from summer of 2005 with parents

Now I'm going to get to that work promised in the first graph. I've sold my car (holy moment for my Grand Prix), I'm giving my mom my phone, I've had three different farewell dinners, and I have all the necessary documents. I'm pretty much ready, but the bags, still unpacked. I'm sure that each article of clothing carefully folded and placed into those beautiful red Samsonites will be a reminder that yes, this is all about to happen, and I can't wait.

Now playing: The Clash - London Calling