Coming to Britannia

I was just walking up the stairs from putting my laundry in and I was thinking about my first few hours here. How scared and excited and dumbstruck I was. So lonely and so tired. I remember getting off the plane and standing in the line for visa clearance. And then meeting Ali after baggage claim and customs. I remember getting in the van to come here and hardly being able to track my completely foreign surroundings. Getting my keys, finding my way around a campus I now take for granted. And coming into this room and laying in bed and trying to sleep and instead crying so hard. That whole day felt like there was a giant invisible hand pushing me forward.

I feel really proud of myself for persevering through those initial feelings and doing everything I have done since with such a sense of adventure. I have been here for just a little over a month. I have come so far in a such short time. I have done so much. Seen so much. And grown so much.

And yet still, there is a long way to go.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go

-Ella Wheeler Wilcox-