PSO

It's the night before I fly to New Mexico for my Pre-Service Orientation with AmeriCorps VISTA.

When I was little I used to get so excited for vacations, travel, holidays... I'd spend all night anxious for the next morning. These were usually painful, sleepless nights of tossing and turning. I'd wake up several times having to remind myself to calm down, that my alarm was set. Then, with anywhere from 15 minutes or an hour to spare, I'd jump out of bed fully awake and ready to go.

Over the years, I've gotten better at controlling this excitement. I don't let myself get worked up over plans and itineraries. But tonight, I can feel myself getting worked up. Not so much in the physical sense, but emotionally. This is hard to explain...

I keep running through everything about going: the reasons why, my objectives while I'm down there, my end goals, the escape route. I weigh and re-weigh the pros and cons. And sometimes I get to thinking, why the hell am I even bothering to do this? Then some inner part of me replies, because you have nothing else and won't ever get anything else.

I don't know if that's true. Whatever. But as much as I hate my life as it is right now... having this whole potential shake up is wreaking havoc on me. I get to thinking that I don't really want to go and I find me trying to convince myself that I should go. That I have to be a risk taker because that's the only way to experience life. Then I start tottering on that mental precipice where behind me lies a flat desert of my safe and boring life, while beneath my toes and as far as the eye can see stretches a giant canyon of the unknown.

But in this instance, when at any other time I'd confront my mother for support, I already know what she'll say... "Then don't go."

She's been trying this entire month to throw me off balance. Although, if you were to straight up ask her, she'll deny it. Perhaps it's subconsciously, but everything she says and does seems to say, YOU'RE MAKING A MISTAKE!

And hearing that, underlying every comment, is like an ice pick chipping away at my resolve. What I need to hear is encouragement. That'll even if I do make a mistake, that I can always come home.

Dad is so much better at that. He understands that I can't stay here forever.

So on this night, waiting to pass out from exhaustion, my emotional state is pretty flimsy. While every nerve in my body is jumping at the chance to travel, see new sites, have an adventure... every synapse in my brain is firing "failure! loss! regret!"

What am I doing, going to another state to live in poverty for a year? What will become of me if I don't go?

PS... I know my blog has started to majorly suck. But my predicament is starting to sap the life out of me. I promise I'm not going emo, but at the moment this is all I can think about. Happier things to come!! (I hope)