I am strangely excited for Irkutsk today. I wish I had my visa. I wish I knew what day I was leaving. I am excited to be in Russia, finally living there, breathing everything Russian for an entire ten months. Today I’m not nervous, I’m not scared, I’m not worried… I’m overwhelmingly curious and antsy. I know that next year will be hard, but I know that it will also be full of invaluable life lessons and unpredictable adventures. Next year will be a defining year. How could it not? It will be my first year truly on my own. It will be when I test all I have learned and been taught, and not only that, but test those values and coping mechanisms in a completely different culture while learning a new language. I have no doubt I will change, and that is what I expect and hope for. I’m not going there to remain stagnant. I’m going because I want to know what it means to be Russian. I want to learn about what makes them laugh, what makes them cry, what helps them to survive and what they treasure most. And I want to adopt what makes most sense in my life.

Change doesn’t scare me. It invigorates me. If we don’t change, then we’ll never grow. And I live my life to grow into a better, more informed, more genuine, more thoughtful, more caring, more open-minded person.

And today I am beyond excited for whatever changes come my way in Irkutsk.