I leave in nine days. Just over a week from this moment and I'll be boarding a plane aimed for Amsterdam. I'll be in Europe. An entirely different continent.

I've been planning this trip for a year. Dreaming about it for a lifetime.

(This is from a couple days ago, but it still stands.)

I can't see myself there. I try to imagine getting off the plane, leaving the airport, taking a bus (or something...still need to research this) from the airport to my hostel. Checking in. Wandering the canal-lined streets.

I can't see it.

But I can feel it.

Every time I try to envision it, my heart races, my feet cool, my face heats. I can almost feel my stomach drop as the plane ascends. I try to think about doing all the things I've dreamt about--and I'm utterly overcome with disbelief that it will happen.

It's happening, though. It's real. The tickets are bought, the hostel is booked. I'm going to Europe. Alone.

HOW did this happen? How did I sum up the courage and/or stupidity to buy that first ticket?

I don't feel brave. I know I've said this, but it's still true. I'm so scared. What if I can't do it? What if I get there and I freeze? Break down? What if I have to book a ticket back home before I even leave the airport?

I think that's my biggest fear. Not pickpockets, or running out of money, or not being able to communicate, or getting lost. It's the fear that I won't even give myself the chance to try.

It's one thing to book the flight. An entirely different thing to actually get on the plane.

I have to do it. Not because I don't want to disappoint anyone or waste the money I've already spent. But because I owe it to myself. I need to make this dream a reality. I need to go out in the world--alone--and find out who I am. I need to give myself the chance to try, to claim that independence, that confidence, those experiences for myself.

This trip is for me and only me. It's not to reclaim these places from my past or to make anyone jealous. I know that on the other side, when I come back, I'll be a different person.

And while that is a thrilling thought, it's also a scary one.

Change is scary. New things are scary. The whole damn world is scary.

I just want to be brave enough to face it.

I hope I will be.

I KNOW I will be.

In the meantime, I should probably put all this nervous energy into finishing the revision on my damn book...

It's October 2nd. I should be a frantic, frenzied mess. I should be maniacally revising my WiP and working on an outline for NaNoWriMo. I should be freaking out.

But I'm not.

No, instead I'm spending ridiculous amounts of time dallying around on the internet and playing Sims. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???

I think I'm having a mental breakdown. No, really. I'm serious. What other reason would I be so...unfocused?

I really need to get it together. I've got less than a month before the absolutely insane four weeks in November. The only saving grace I have is that I know the story I'm gonna be working on. I know it and its characters well. I just have to rework it and make it stronger and more...logical. Just an outline. That's all I need. Usually, when I'm starting a new project, I need an outline, character interviews, page after page of notes and research. But not this time. Just an outline. Maybe that's why I'm being so nonchalant. I think I've got it under control because I've been working on this story for so long. I'm not taking into account that whatever I've got written for it (an entire word-vomit of a first draft, written from too many POVs and filled with purple prose) is useless. Everything has to go. I have to start anew. I need to hammer that concept into my thick head. Maybe then I'll be good and motivated.

Or at least I hope so.

I leave for work in about twenty minutes. It's going to be a long, hectic day. I wasted three hours this morning doing nothing of importance when I could have gotten a lot accomplished. All day, I'm gonna kick myself for that. And all day, I'm going to remind myself that I've got a lot of work ahead of me. Maybe by the time I get out, I'll be motivated with just the right dash of freaking out.

So, how about you? Am I the only one who's so daggone unmotivated? How do you get past this?