Departure: As time runs low, the temperature rises.

With just over four weeks to go until I leave for the UK, my to-do lists are finally shrinking.

I’ve wrapped up at work, my apartment is rented, and friend-and-family visits will occupy the coming days.

Now that the moment I’ve been waiting for is almost here, I’m under a very different sort of pressure than I anticipated.

I’ve done very well at preparing for all of the logistical elements of my trip — having a Type A personality makes that a piece of cake — but what I’ve failed to anticipate is the mental and emotional challenges presented by departure.

I fully expected that moving to Europe would be difficult, that it would challenge every single one of my faculties, that it would take everything I had to make it work. What I did not expect was that leaving Canada would be a fundamental challenge in itself.

Even though I want to take this journey with every fibre of my being, I’ve quickly realized that I also have a very deep attachment to this place and this life. And in all of my packing and organizing and planning, I had failed to take stock of that. I had failed to honour my present situation —  a situation that brought me to this moment.

It is just as important to say goodbye to my current life than it is to greet the new one.

I think I’m going to journal quite intensely in this period — to honour this time and place and create a reference point for my future travels. When I look back on this journey, I want to remember vividly every aspect of my trip, every challenge I faced and the work I did to overcome it.