Things Just Happen

I filed my Visa application on Monday. As I did so, self-doubt started creeping back in. Am I doing the right thing? I know that I really shouldn't wait any longer because I'm starting to feel as though my life hasn't really begun. It's like I keep waiting for something and that something doesn't ever come or happen. But I suppose a lot of life is like that - planning and preparing for things that can't or won't come about due to circumstances that, by and large, are out of our control.

I'm not a big believer in fate. I think things just happen, for good or for bad. Things. Just. Happen. But I do give a little weight to the whole "meant to be" notion of life. I'd like to think there was a reason I didn't get into law school or Brown or wherever. I'd really like to believe that there is some reason for me to be packing up my life and moving to another country. What is it that I'm supposed to discover? Where is it that I'm supposed to go? What am I to do with this incredible opportunity? Not squander it away, I get, but otherwise is this a chance to become who I am meant to be?

Life is all about discovery, and I don't think that we are stagnate once we reach "adulthood". Who is to define what adulthood is anyway? I don't feel like an adult yet, despite my age and the degree that tells me otherwise. We should constantly reach and redefine and develop and progress as we age. My personality at 18 going in to college is a lot different than my personality is now at 24. Some say college is about finding out who you are. My experience was that college is about finding out who you are not. It was about embracing my inherent nerdiness and to stop apologizing for if not being the smartest person in the room then wanting to be the smartest person in the room. One of my proudest moments of my college career was when I realized that I was the one who threw the curve in my history class because of my grade on an exam.

Though the ratio of confidence to doubt about what could become 'Misadventures in Becoming an Expat' is growing in the confidence column, I still have room for about 40% doubt. Mostly it is centered around what happens when I'm handed that degree and I'm back to square one on the job situation. I appreciate that there are people who are and will be worse off because of this economic downtown than I ever will be because of my education, yet a part of me panics every time I so much as think about trolling for a job again. I don't think things will be any better fifteen months from now. But you never know. I could end up with the job of my dreams (I'm looking at you NBC News). I could end up with what I have dreamed of all along. Then again, I could end up with nothing but a piece of paper worth only my sweat and tears and $35,000. I can't plan for anything. I can only hope and wish and daydream because things just happen.