Are you scared?

  Okay, so, one of the most common questions friends and strangers have asked me when talking about these last few weeks leading up to my departure is "are you nervous/scared/frightened?"  The short answer is yes.  In fact, I'm terrified.  I'm scared out of my mind.  In my experience, starting a new job is always a bit scary.  Add in the fact that I'll be living in a completely different country, where English may officially be the language but isn't as widely spoken as it is here, with different cultures, different diets, less technology, etc.  Basically, I'm leaving behind my entire life.  Everything I own, everything I'm used to, my comfort zone, I'm leaving it all behind.  Just like I did when I went to Israel, though this is to an even larger degree.  And unlike Israel, I'm leaving family and friends behind.  On Year Course, I knew a couple people going in.  I had a cousin in Israel.  I don't know anyone in Namibia, and other than a few Facebook exchanges, I don't really know anyone I'm doing this with.  I'm hoping to bring a couple DC/Tulane relics to provide me a little comfort zone in my home over there for when I get homesick.
  That being said, it's not the changes that terrifies me the most.  I'm going abroad for 2 years.  I'm going to have limited communication with my friends back here.  For 2 years, they're all going to have more-or-less lives that are completely Jay-free.  I'm terrified about how much is going to change while I'm gone.  I'm scared that by the time I get back, I'll be completely out of everybody's lives.  Of course, I know that's a bit extreme, but when I look back at all the changes over the last 2 years, and how much more will change over the next 2, with friends starting to get married, have kids, move away, etc., it's hard to try and predict where I'll fit in when I get back.  I'm terrified that as I say goodbye to people (my fair-well tour now on it's final leg), in some cases, it might be the last time I ever see them.  As my departure date approaches, reality sets in more each day.
  However, I don't want this to sound all doom-and-gloomy.  I'm really excited.  I'm really looking forward to this.  I can't wait to get there, to meet the people I will be training with, to meet the community I will be living in, and to get started with my service.  But the honest truth is, as excited as I am, of course I'm scared. And I wouldn't have it any other way.  Everyone likes to talk about the Robert Frost line about the road less traveled.  I've never been a fan.  To me, it's not about the road less traveled, so much as the road I, as an individual, have yet to travel down.  "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us".  Sometimes that decision requires leaving our comfort zone.  And those who have never been scared rarely, if ever, leave their mark or reach their full potential.  So I'm glad I'm scared, glad that this is going to be a challenge.  Because otherwise, anybody could do.  Otherwise, it would not be as fulfilling a use of the time I have been given.