Lights

The current time is 3:23 A.M. which means I can very accurately say that I move to London tomorrow. I’m super sleepy but that’s when I normally write best, so I guess we’ll see how this goes.

I do have an announcement that has been a long time in the making: I finished packing. I have so much stuff that I probably don’t need and I have no idea where anything is, but the important thing is that everything is in a suitcase or bag of some sort and I guess I’ll just have to figure it out later.

So, that’s it then. That was the last thing I was worrying about. Now I just have to wait.

I feel weird. I don’t feel totally desensitized to everything like I did before, though. Weird in a different way. I’m feeling lots of things, actually. Little lights keep flashing in my head and sounds keep buzzing but I don’t know what any of them mean and it’s super frustrating. I genuinely can’t tell whether I want to start sobbing or smiling as hard as I can, so I’m kind of just doing neither.

My family is coming over tonight for a little goodbye dinner and then I have one more sleep in my big comfy bed and then my dad and I will leave the house a little after two in the afternoon to go to the airport with our stupidly enormous collection of luggage. We have an hour flight to start, a short layover, then we do the real big eight-hour-or-whatever flight. I just want to be on that plane now. I really love flying. The cool thing about flying is that nobody expects you to do anything except just sit there and stare into space or listen to music or sleep and that’s pretty much what I do most of the time anyways, but in a plane that’s what you’re supposed to do. I just want to shut my mind off because it has been racing a mile a minute for the past few months, so to actually be on the plane and in the quiet knowing that I’m on my way will be a welcome break.

I cleaned my room, too. That helped a lot because whenever my room’s a mess it normally means my head’s a mess so I’m already feeling better, really. 

A lot of my friends that will be going to my uni are already in London and they’ve been putting up pictures of things that remind me why I fell in love with the city in the first place. There is no doubt in my mind I am making the right decision. I know a lot of my rambling can be interpreted as me not really wanting to go, but that is astronomically far from the truth; I want to do this more than anything in the world. I just don’t really know what to do with my emotions sometimes which is why I might sound kind of silly talking about this whole thing.

I’m so excited to see my friends. Most of them I haven’t seen in two years and some of them I haven’t even properly met yet so that makes me really happy to think about. 

I’m starting to feel kind of sick so I’m gonna go to bed I think. This was a really crappy blog post but I sort of just started typing and didn’t stop and I think that’s probably what I needed right now. I’ll probably do one more post before I leave!

Savannah

Countdown: 1 day
Currently listening to: Margot & The Nuclear So and So's - Not Animal

Digits

As it turns out, securing my visa was only the beginning of my problems. I was so worried about getting it that I focused all my nervous energy on that one issue alone, completely ignoring everything else I was going to have to deal with afterwards. Once my visa was settled, for a moment, my stomach butterflies finally took a nap, and my nails, no longer victim to incessant chewing, began to grow back. However, this calm was pathetically short-lived. Only a couple days after I got my visa, I had one of the worst anxiety attacks I’ve ever had, and, as it is most of the time, I’m not really sure why. It was like everything suddenly flooded into my brain all at once—I’m leaving for good, I still don’t know how to do laundry, I’m still not packed, what if I forget something really important, I probably won’t make any friends, what if I'm miserable, what if they don't even let me in the country, so on and so forth. Remember that moment of realization I was talking about earlier? Well, I thought that was that moment, but since then, I’ve gone back to feeling sort of numb towards the entire thing. To be honest, though, I’m happy for it. I’m still trying to make important decisions (these are, of course, including what color towels I should buy and which bedspread do I think really speaks to me), and I’m a bad decision maker normally, so adding yet another layer of anxiety to the mix is definitely unwanted right now.

With all that being said, I still am very much excited. Even though the changes are a lot to take in and are becoming a bit more tangible, that doesn’t at all suggest I’m getting apprehensive about the move! The pros, without a single doubt in my mind, outweigh the cons. They destroy the cons. If you put the pros directly on top of the cons, the cons would become flattened, smushy pancake cons. Also, I typically worry about totally silly and irrational things—I know that I’m not going to be miserable, I have plenty of time to pack, I can always ship something if I forget it, I’ve already made friends, and I’m sure laundry is relatively simple to get the hang of in the grand scheme of things. It’s all just very overwhelming, maybe like jumping headfirst into a pool of cold water; everything’s uncomfortable and fuzzy and shocking at first, but as long as you doggy-paddle around for a bit, you’ll start to feel cozy, and, eventually, will not want to get out. 

On a related note, packing sucks. Not only is it a breeding ground for my indecisiveness (which of these sweaters possesses the perfect balance of comfortable and adorable? How many denim shirts is too many denim shirts?), it’s time consuming. Maybe I’m just being as thorough as possible, but I genuinely spent approximately six hours straight the other day just sorting through things, and I’m really not even close to finished. And that’s just clothes—I still have to think about about all my other little necessities too. Believe me, everyone will know if I somehow find myself in London without a toothbrush, because I will most likely be parading up and down the halls shouting about it.

Anyway, I can honestly say that I’m happy right now. My dad and I booked the hotel we’re going to stay in the first night, friends and I have been making plans for after I get there, and everything’s good! The countdown will officially be in the single digits as of tomorrow, which is a ridiculous thought, because I recall the countdown literally being in the quadruple digits at one point. Everything I’ve ever wanted is happening right now and I’m really trying to take it all in.

Savannah

Countdown: 10 days

Currently listening to: Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Worries

Something happened today that was so wonderful, I’d go as far to say that it was practically magical. I got an email saying my visa was issued and my passport, with its new, sparkly visa living inside was on its way! Thank you Queen! Couldn’t’ve done it without you. I won’t let you down. (For those of you that don't know, a visa, in this context, is not a credit card, but something I applied for that allows me to live and study in the UK for an extended period of time.)

Getting this visa has, without a doubt, been the peskiest, most worry-causing thing I’ve ever had to do. More so than making the decision to go abroad, more so than actually applying for schools, and, yes, more so than my fifth grade spelling bee (and that was terrifying). Ever since June, I felt this constant pressure on my chest and what I can only describe as horrible little visa elves living in my shoulders and neck and pushing my muscles together all the time. Realistically, there was absolutely no reason for me to be nervous at all, but I was cripplingly, debilitatingly nervous and I’m not really sure why.

I think it might have bothered me so much because, well, firstly, I worry about everything, but also, everyone was already talking about my move as if it was a totally done deal. And it was, essentially, but my mind loves cycling through worst-case scenarios and the nagging thought that my visa could be denied never left the back of my head. Every time I got excited about moving or told friends that I couldn’t wait to see them, the little part of my brain that hates me chimed in with a, “Hey, but what if you can’t actually go and everyone is just super disappointed instead of happy and you’ll never leave home and aaaaahhhh?!” 

I kept feeding this irrational thought that everything on my application had to be flawless. Which it did, in the sense that I had to meet necessary criteria and all of my documents had to be legitimate, but I’m a relatively unthreatening eighteen-year-old with an astounding lack of a criminal record, so I’d like to imagine the United Kingdom Border Agency had very little to be suspicious about. But, as you can guess, that didn’t stop me from panicking about every little detail; whenever I had to sign something, my hand was shaking like it was experiencing its own personal earthquake because I was so worried that if my signature wasn’t perfectly crafted, the UKBA would dub me not good enough and toss my application (and with it, my very heart and soul) into some bin with all the other rejects. “You call that cursive?” they’d scoff.

I’ve always been a perfectionist, but this was a new level of ridiculous, to the point where I almost started crying at the post office because I couldn’t figure out what package to send my application in. That special, pull-yourself-together-why-are-you-even-allowed-to-leave-the-house kind of ridiculous.

But, obviously, it all worked out! I'm happy and proud of my ability to do something as important as this by myself. I'm also proud of the fact that, despite all evidence would suggest, I did not have one single brain aneurysm. Good for me.

Now that that's out of the way, all I have to do is... oh, well, everything else.

Savannah

Countdown: 17 days
Currently listening to: Keaton Henson - Birthdays 
(for the five millionth time)

Beginnings

Hello guys! My name is Savannah and here is my fancy new blog. If this goes like any other writing thing I've ever tried to do, every entry is going to start off with "Sorry I haven't posted in awhile!" but I pinkie promise that I'm going to try my best. This blog, as the painfully clever title suggests, is going to be about anything and everything to do with my traveling and such. This idea first started off as a way to keep friends and family in the loop as to what on earth I'm doing and where on earth I am, but I figured other people might find it interesting as well. So, welcome aboard, if you're a pretender come sit by my fire, so on and so forth.

I'm moving to London! In a month and a week-ish! We still haven't booked my flights because I come  from a family of professional procrastinators, but I know I'll be leaving sometime around the end of August. I keep saying this but I genuinely still don't think it has hit me yet; I understand that I'm leaving and I've answered the question "Are you excited?" probably five million times with resounding affirmation but I still don't understand it. Honestly, I probably won't until a couple days after I get there and then have the inevitable moment of panicky, what-am-I-doing-this-is-crazy hopelessness but hey, all in good fun right? Seriously though, I truly am very excited and I find it hard to think of anything else. I've been making travel playlists and lists of things I should bring in my carry-on and going over airport procedure and thinking about pensively gazing out the window of the airplane with some dramatic instrumental blasting in my ears for four freaking years, but I know once I actually get on the plane there will probably be a screaming child and bad food and I won't be able to sleep because the smelly guy next to me keeps dozing in my personal space. But it will still be magical I'm sure!

And the clothes. Despite having a perfectly adequate wardrobe, I decided a couple months ago that I was going to undergo a massive style overhaul. I was to be London. If London became a girl, I would be her. I now possess an impressive collection of collared blouses, trench coats, blazers, vintage floral dresses and beige tartan scarves that could perhaps make the Queen herself a smidgen jealous. Every thrift store within a twenty mile radius of my home will probably never have another pair of Oxfords or an oversized monochrome sweater ever again, for they are now all mine. Getting all of this stuff over there, though, is another matter entirely, and actually fitting all of it in my room is another impossibility. My roommate is going to hate me. "Hey, roomie, nice to meet you! I just wanted to let you know that you're gonna need to move your bed just right outside the hallway--there's not enough room for my shoes."

I have lots more to talk about in regards to pre-move preparations, but I'm kinda sleepy and I don't want to tell you everything at once because then you'll never see another blog post ever again, so I'm going to end it here. Talk to you guys soon!

Savannah

Countown: 37 days
Currently listening to: Amélie Soundtrack