Overwhelming fear

Sometimes I remember that in five months and seven days I’ll be moving to Korea, and I smile.  I smile like it’s the best thing that could ever happen.  And it’s going to be an amazing adventure!  I’m so excited to do this!  To get out of my comfort zone and experience new people and new places!  It’s going to be fantastic!

And then other days I think about it and there’s this fear that hits me.  I have to move away from everything I know.  Everyone I love.  What do I do?  How do I stay in contact?  How do I cope at work without my best friend Michelle?  How do I survive the weekends without wine time at Stephanie’s (and then inevitably crashing on her bed and waking up to her making the most delicious fucking breakfast in the history of the world all from scratch cuz she’s super awesome)?  

My family will be like 7,000 miles away.  I have never been more than 1,000 or so…that was in high school, when I was at boarding school in Iowa.  There were a lot of South Korean kids at the boarding school, and I don’t know how they did it.  Granted, none of us were near home (except the kids whose parents worked there), but 7,000 is a shit ton more than 1,000.  How do I cope?

I am so dependent on my family.  On my friends.  I’ll make new friends, and they will have to become like family to me, but it’s not the same.  I survive on the hugs that I receive from my parents every couple months when I go home to see them.  On their smiles when they understand that I haven’t fucked up yet like my older siblings.  I call my Mother almost every day – usually more than once.  Her voice is the soundtrack of my life, and it keeps me grounded.  

I’m tearing up writing this.  I can’t cope thinking about leaving them.

But I did join the military.  I am a strong woman.  I do want to go to Mars someday, and that is at least 33.9268566 million miles (google just helped me a lot) away from home.  I will survive if I make it there, and the first test of that is only 7,000 miles away in Korea.  

I’m going home in a few days because we have a four day weekend for the fourth of July, and I don’t know if I can bring myself to come back.

Of course, I always DO come back.  I make myself.  I have to.  I signed up for this.  But sometimes the urge to drive off a cliff is crippling.