13days

That's it. In two weeks from yesterday I'll leave. It's so soon. I don't feel ready.

Only thirteen days! I can't believe it. It's one of those things. You know it's gonna happen soon, and then it hits you how soon it really is. And then you don't know what to do because you're not ready.

I feel like I don't know what I was thinking. Half of me is excited, the other half is already homesick. How can I leave my family for so long?

In thirteen days I'll leave. And I won't be back for 82days.

I feel like singing, then I feel like crying. I feel so excited that I'll actually get to go, then I think about how long it is and how short of a time I have left and I think I'm crazy for even thinking about going.

It's easy to talk big. It's easy to tell my friends that I'm leaving, tell them how much I'll miss them. It's easy to be excited about this huge adventure. But then it comes right down to the last 13days, and I realize that it isn't just flying over the Eiffel Tower and experiencing the Middle East. This is 82days gone. This is 82days of huge incredible amazing things. But my family isn't going to be there.

I never realized how much I love my family. I never realized what it'll mean to not see them for so long. I'm not even the one who gets homesick easily. I'm the one who wants to leave, who's ready for whatever adventure comes her way. I've always said that when I grow up I'm not gonna stay in Indiana or even the US. I've always been ready to move. And I've been so excited to go this summer, but now I think about leaving my family for so long. At the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the narrator says, "In the end, Charlie Bucket won a chocolate factory. But Willy Wonka had something even better, a family. And one thing was absolutely certain - life had never been sweeter." It's gonna be really hard to leave them, but it will be worth it, and it'll be so much fun when I come back to them.