The Moment of Truth

I hate the feeling when my insides get all shaky. When I'm nervous my hands don't shake and my knees don't knock, but my face gets bright red and I can feel all of my organs jittering around inside. It is not a pleasant feeling. I get it on rare occasions: when I'm having a really deep conversation with someone, giving a talk in church, or doing something that I know will change my life.

My flight is 36 hours long. A day and a half. That is a lot of extra time to be nervous. The minute I stop being nervous about leaving is the minute I start being nervous about being on my way there. Let me justify my nerves for a minute.

I am going to a country that is 5173 miles away from where I live (not that I've checked or anything...). I do not speak the language in this country. I can say hello and my name is Nicole but that's about it. I will be living with a family I won't know, who may or may not speak much English and who will likely not be LDS. And I've lived in English speaking, very Mormon, Sandy, Utah my whole life. I will be in a city with a population of almost 5 million people. The biggest and closest city to me has a population of a little over 1 million. I am teaching English to children between the ages of 4 and 15. I've never even done so much as taught a primary class. Actually, that's a lie. I taught a sunbeams class once. They ignored me the whole time and discussed one girl's necklace for the majority of the hour. So yeah, nervous just barely begins to cover it.

But, as cheesey and tacky as it sounds, sometimes I feel like Belle on Beauty and the Beast, the Disney version that is. So pretty much she stays at home, reads books, and tries to help her dad as much as she can. Yeah, I'm a home-body, book reading, people pleaser! But for some reason I've always liked it when she sings "I want adventure in the great, wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell." I want to get out and see and experience everything I have learned about! I want to see that all people are just people, even if they live differently. I want to hear people have emotions when they speak, even if it's in another language. I want to feel that everything I've learned and been taught can still be true 5000 miles away. So yes, I am nervous and scared and terrified and shaky on my insides. But I'm excited and anxious and ready for an adventure. So this is me going into the great wide somewhere!