Six days left.

I have been dreaming about this moment since January when I purchased my bundle of plane tickets and a work/holiday visa. I dreamt of graduating college, surviving weekend long back-to-back doubles, and keeping sane. I dreamt for this permanent leave two years ago, and everything is becoming real now.

With my email pulled up and airbnb trips on a second tab, I toggle back and forth triple checking that everything is in order. I have this unnerving feeling rumbling within me. I’m unbelievably excited, but I’m also scared shitless as well. With every big trip, I always feel this way. It’s not an uncommon feeling for me as is returning back to home base… but this time, I won’t. The days leading up to my scheduled flight is like the seconds you have on the edge before you bungy. Your heart pulsates so fast, it feels similar to hyperventilation, but then it settles into light flutters traveling down to your stomach. Your hands begin to tremble as your feet taps to the rhythm of your heart. You’re jittery and the only cure is to just do it.

So you jump. In that moment of flight, all your worries disappear, and you feel like you can take on anything.

I am waiting in anticipation for Monday afternoon. I await to pass through security, through baggage claim, and through all the other calls for boarding flights until mine is announced. Until my buttocks are situated and snapped into that assigned seat, that’ll be my anxiety pill. I’ll mouth and imitate all the motions of the flight attendant during safety procedures and mold into my seat. I’ll look over to my neighbor and precaution them that my sleepy head may rest upon their shoulder. I await.

Have you ever wondered where you were meant to live? Where you feel the most comfortable, the most welcomed? I constantly think about all the countries that I’ve either lived in or visited and imagine myself creating a life there. I’ve lived in the States for the majority of my life, and I realized in high school that I wasn’t meant to live here. With all my travels, everywhere I visit, I inevitably run into an Aussie and we click instantly. We exchange stories and our love for vegemite. With all the similarities we share, it’s almost as if I’m no longer an American. So I choose Australia. I choose the great land down under not because of their accents, but because I found myself there two years ago. Granted this may all change when I arrive in October, but the possibility of that happening are slim to none.

So this is my goodbye to you, America. Thanks for the education, and the people I have met, befriended, and connected with. Thanks for the opportunities and the forever physical and mental memories; I’ll forever cherish them. I’ll always think of Florida as the home base, despite how rare I go back; Philadelphia will be the place I will always visit; for the rest of America, I’ll explore you again, one day.

I’ve gotten pretty good at goodbyes. I’ve said many, but perhaps one day I won’t have to anymore.

Until we meet again, thanks for the memories, laughs, and side-eyes; follow me on the gram and on here, for this won’t become a use of monetary value, but a way for us to keep in touch. Thanks America, it’s been real.

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Abby