Anyone who’s talked to me about this upcoming Europe trip knows that I feel pretty scared about it. It’s starting to dawn on me that the weeks spent outside of my summer school in Edinburgh (which are already structured for me, and so less scary) gallivanting across the United Kingdom and France will be me, a young, solo female traveller in countries and a continent she’s never step foot in before: that’s pretty insane. My dad likes to joke that I have been to Paris before, since my mom was pregnant with me already when she and my dad visited, so I will take that joke seriously for some reassurance that Europe isn’t so alien to me.

I had a (childless, male) teacher in high school whose lessons we filled with anecdotes about his experience travelling the world. I spoke with him once about wanting to travel like he did, alone, make your own adventure style. I can’t remember if it was him or me who brought up the fact that travelling as he did–as a white man–will not be the same as travelling as I will–as a woman of colour. All I can really remember from that conversation is him telling me how he kept his passport close to him at all times–worthy advice to remember as I go forward, I think.

I’ve been planning for this trip for so long that I hardly know when the planning started. I told a friend that I was scared and he assured me by saying that I am one of the most “together” people he knows, and I think it’s fair to say that this is the case for many of my friends. I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of girl, in any sense of the phrase. I plan. I colour-code. I anticipate. I prepare. I mean, I’m adaptable to change, but I operate like everything’s going to go according to plan until it doesn’t, which works for me.

But it doesn’t work when planning for this trip. Because when I’m planning for projects or planning my day, there are only so many variables. I can account for possibilities here in my safety net. Travelling alone, there are too many possibilities, and it drives me to panic considering ways to avoid potential problems.

Even as I reflected on the irrationality of my problems to Nate last night–

“What if I run out of money before my trip ends?”

“We know that it’s easy enough to transfer money to you.”

“What if the Internet breaks?!”

“Yes. Yes. That is definitely a possibility.”

–I still felt that beat in my chest. It’s probably one of those big stand-up drums that has to be hit with mallets, just past my rib cage, someone pounding at it relentlessly.

I don’t think I can talk myself out of being afraid of this. (See: above, conversation with Nate.) I will not be able to consider all the variables. I know that there is a life past this–I’ve already planned for it, as I do–and I know that there is only so much I can do right now to be ready for this trip. One of the things that I can do right now is to accept that fear, to feel it whole-heartedly (I don’t have opportunities to be afraid very often, luckily), and know that on the other side of this fear, there is bliss.