I’ve already packed up one suitcase for Japan. It’s the twenty eighth of June and I won’t be leaving until the the thirtieth of July, but I’ve packed it all the same. I’ve learned that I’ll be in the southern port village of Izuhara on Tsushima island.

I’m a month out from an experience that will intrinsically change who I am as a person. I know that after I go, my dreams won’t be the same. Or my fears. Or anything that has guided me up to this point. Well, maybe not everything, but the looming shadow of a long realized dream is anxiety producing.

I know that a part of me was always going to feel unfulfilled if I didn’t go out into the world and leave all my safety nets. For all the friends and romantic relationships, I’d always have that sliver of unease working its way deeper into my psyche.

You don’t know what you don’t know. That’s the entire reason I’m going. I can be as scared as I want, but having the courage to still follow through with the plan is what matters.

The first time I did anything like this is when I got an apartment down in Eugene at 18th and Mill with my first girlfriend. It felt like steering into the sun with a gale force wind at my back. It underlined that I wasn’t ready for everything that came with living with a partner. Hell, I hadn’t even figured out how to live with myself yet. But it showed me that I can take the leap off the cliff when its necessary.

That’s something that I’ve been afraid to do for a couple years now. The leap into the unknown.