Packing Practice, One Month To Go

Practice makes perfect!

At least lets hope so....

A couple of weeks ago, I did a practice packing of my bag. When I put it on, I instantly got a "holy crap this is actually happening" feeling. Better to feel than now rather then the morning of my flight, right...? Picture below shows all that's inside the bag...


When I do my actual final packing, I'll go through what I end up bringing with me. A couple items were missing in this photo, but have since arrived in the mail (thank you Amazon!). I.e. power converter, merino wool shirt, cloths drying line. As you can likely tell, in the course 3-4 months I'll need to do laundry fairly frequently...

I'm always open to advice of something I ABSOLUTELY must bring with me. Although I'm intimidated about the very small amount I'm taking, I feel pretty good about it!

With one month until take off, a whole range or emotions has been flowing through me. I am now homeless... or I guess the "trendy" term would be "nomadic." Homeless by choice? I moved out of my apartment and have been staying with friends until the big day. The strange feeling of "I won't have a place of my own until next year" settled in me. It brings forward unnecessary and non-helpful brainstorming of what moves I'll make when returning Stateside next year. A strong purpose of this trip is to find myself and figure that out when I return, so getting deep into it now uncovers nothing but stress. Instead, I attempt to focus on the time left here to enjoy where I currently live and the people that surround me.

With all the necessary paperwork and visas aquired, at this point I am anxious to begin. I want to face fears of being homesick and of not having everything planned to a 'T.' I want my breath taken away by these cultures and landmarks. I want to make lasting friendships with people from every corner of the world. 

One more thing I want to share: I'm  pretty proud of myself. Someone asked me yesterday if I was paying for my trip with money that I earned. Yes. Yes I am. I worked very hard to get to the independence that I have for myself today. Perhaps one of my weakness is that I don't like being dependent on others. No one handed me this opportunity. I earned it.