January 22, 2012

Is This Crazy?

By simply three cents

Once I have a booked flight – no matter where it is – I get giddy and excited that a trip is in my future!

My immediate reaction after booking my international flights shocked me.

I questioned myself.

Every negative comment I have heard about my plan came flooding at me.

It was the wee hours of the morning when I booked the flights but I needed some reassurance that I was doing the right thing.

Once I booked the international flights and the one domestic flight in Chile, I sent an email to A and C, who I am meeting in Chile. Here’s the gist of my email:

Am I a total nutjob and have I fallen off the rocker? I’m well on my way and flipping my shit! I’m totally freaking out tonight. Yesterday I finished all of my vaccines and today I am flipping out.

FLIPPING OUT. Am I really doing this? Seriously?I am a member of the Basic Training program that Meet Plan Go offers. With that comes access to a built-in support group full of people who think like me. I wasn’t sure if there would be any cheerleaders at that ungodly hour (on a work night no less) but I was desperate and hopeful for reassurance. Here’s what I wrote:

Please someone tell me I am doing the right thing. I know I am but I am second guessing everything right now. Why you ask?! I literally just booked my international flights ten minutes ago. Why this is freaking me out has me beside myself. It’s not like this was the first step of my planning process. I have gotten all of my vaccinations, I have bought my rucksack and have started to fill it, I have already put money down on a hotel (oh, a hotel!) to meet friends halfway through my trip and I booked an internal flight within Chile…yet booking my international flight scared the absolute crap out of me!? WHAT? WHY? HELP!

Not expecting a response at that hour, I was shocked when I got one just a few minutes after I posted on one of the discussion boards. Here’s an experienced career breaker’s abbreviated response:
Yay!! So exciting. You are feeling scared…you know what that means? You are feeling ALIVE! It will happen more too. But you will get used to it. Take a breather and know that everything really does fall into place…especially after all this great planning you’ve done!
My response:

Thanks for the encouragement!! I so need to be reminded of the amazing experience ahead of me.Funny you say I am feeling alive. One of the best fortunes from a fortune cookie I ever read was something along the lines of ‘if you don’t do things that scare you, you aren’t really living.’

I eventually got to sleep, for three hours. The next day I was in a Chase Bank with a friend, I will call her V, as in Victor, and I told her I booked my flight and slightly freaked out. And then, I started crying.

I was crying IN THE BANK. And then I started laughing because I realized how ridiculous I must have looked. She reminded me how excited I had been during the past few weeks and blamed my reaction on lack of sleep. She told me to get a good night sleep that night and then see how I felt about my decision the following morning.

So I did.

That night I went to bed at 6.30pm and thankfully I did not have work the following day because I did not get out of bed until 10am. It didn’t happen right away but I’d say after the initial 24 hours passed I had better perspective and renewed excitement!

C responded to my email with a quote that a friend of hers had told her when she made a move to Chicago.

Any type of change takes courage.

I like it.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 22nd, 2012 at 8:00 am and posted in career break. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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