I feel kind of like how I felt the night before graduation. Sleep-deprived, emotional, exhausted. Scared of the future. Dreading saying goodbye – only this goodbye is so much bigger because I don’t know if (when) I’ll be back. I thought this week would be easy – I quit my job early so I could relax before my big trip and spend time with the people who made me happy. But instead, I spent the past few days unbelievably stressed and on the verge of tears every time I thought about the fact that I have to leave. Now, in exactly twelve hours, I’ll be on my flight out of Australia and on to the next leg/journey/adventure. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited for something new, and the next few months of travel will be amazing. But I’ve said some of my hardest goodbyes today and my heart needs a little time before I can truly get psyched for what’s next.

There’s a quote I love by the author Azar Nafisi that says, “You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and place because you’ll never be this way ever again.” This past year in Australia has made me feel so alive. When I boarded that plane to Brisbane a year ago, I felt like I was running away – but what I’ve realized is that I was doing the complete opposite. I love the person Australia has turned me into. The kind of person how runs towards life, seizes it, embraces the unknown. The kind of person who truly tries not to take a single second for granted. I feel so full I could just explode – but in a good way. My biggest fear in leaving Australia is that I’ll lose sight of the person I’ve become while living here. I will miss everything about this place, but mostly I’ll miss the Aussie version of me.

I guess all I can do is keep moving forward and try my best to love the world outside of Australia. Tomorrow morning, Kelsey and I will fly to Malaysia to begin nearly three months of adventure in Southeast Asia. We have a flight into Kuala Lumpur and a flight out of Singapore at the end of August, and I have no idea what will happen in between. Stay tuned for updates – I will be writing as often as I can

Goodbye, Australia - for now, not forever!