dive in,

be here now,

i reminded myself.

everything you are doing is something you at one point wished for.

i encouraged myself as my heart beat a million miles per minute.

i took a few slow breaths to ease my embarrassment, the adrenaline, and the pain in the legs.

today’s lesson is prepare beforehand. which i did with everything on my trip except for packing bag (arguably the most important part?) and finding my international gate.

but that’s okay! i think the excuse “i’m at my inbetween” is still plausible at this point.

i’ll survive and i’ll figure it out.

i cut it close with making my first international flight and having to run with a heavy backpack is hard to do when you haven’t been training for it.

old me was shining through heavily, thinking i could get away with packing the day before and finding my gate all last minute. i was fighting off thoughts of shame for putting myself in these positions but reminded myself that you can’t hate yourself through change, you can only love yourself towards evolution. and so, im taking these lessons in hard and handling the consequences with grace and forgiveness.

with that tumultuous start of my flight, i sat down FLOODED with emotion. i had little goodies waiting for me on my seat! a pillow, a blanket?! score. a toothbrush and even some slippers for my feet. damn, let me just make myself at home! wow. my first international flight. and i almost didn’t make it. the next wave was gratitude. i made it. i am here.

it’s crazy how your heart and soul feel when you’re overwhelmed with gratitude. let’s just say, i cried while eating the tray of food i was given.

i reflected how grounding myself in these moments is so important to me and i want to learn how to do that with a partner, at my job, socializing with people, in my everyday life. just fully immersing myself in the moment and not how something makes me feel or worried about what’s coming next. i’m a work in progress.

overall, another day of gratitude. i realized that im a lot stronger than i lead myself to believe. other a little unorthodox in my approaches… im able to handle whatever comes at me. i woke up today with just this knowing, just a sureness in who i am and what im about to do. taking it all moment by moment, step by step.