Making my own way.

I am currently sitting in the Sacramento airport and I'm blogging from my itouch! It's brand new and absolutely beautiful =). And yes airport. But no, I'm not going to Paris yet. I'm heading North to Seattle for a few days to visit my grandmother, my aunt and uncle and my brother and his wife. I'm quite excited.

And speaking of Paris, it's all planned and ready, and also very exciting. We bought my ticket yesterday. I fly out on Monday the 9th and I have an eleven hour layover in New York on the 10th which insidently is my birthday! So I'm hoping to have breakfast at Tiffany's on my 19th birthday. After my awesome layover I head across the Atlantic and land in Paris at eleven on the morning of the 11th. 

The days leading up to my flight are packed, first with this Seattle trip and then with goodbyes. I get home Saturday evening and am hopefully going to be able to see one of my dear friends from One Way Productions. Then Sunday morning at church our rector is going to "commission" me, which basically means bless me for my trip and my time away from my church home. That afternoon I have coffee with Christina my wonderful youth leader from high school and that night I go out with Sam, Julia and Mattias. Monday morning mum and I are going to SanFrancisco to pick up my visa and then Monday night I fly out. I've got a full week ahead of me. But I'm looking forward to it, I enjoy being busy and having a packed schedule forces me to pay attention to time and make sure that I'm ready for everything, so really this is a very good thing and it means I'm much more likely to be well prepared. 

Yesterday we bought my one way ticket to Paris it finally started; the fear - the absolute terror. The questioning myself. The "what the hell can I possibly be thinking?" I love my life, my job, my friends and not least of all I love my family. Why, why am I leaving it all? But then I got an email. For sometime now I've been reading and commenting on a blog called "Frassy". It's run by a woman named Audrey who lives in Paris. I recently wrote to her telling her that I am coming to Paris and yesterday she wrote back. She was kind and encouraging and invited me to meet for coffee sometime, and most importantly she remindid me - without trying - of why I'm going to Paris. I'm going to learn, to grow, to see the world and maybe, just maybe, become the woman I want to be. I could become her here in California but somehow I feel like it will be easier in Paris. Surrounded by all that art and culture and history, not to mention the fact that I will be forced to make my own way. I've never had to make my own way and I know that it will be good for me. Scary, yes; but good for me.