A Dream of London: Study Abroad Expectations

This post originally appeared on CAPA World Blog in August 2015

Here is the unfortunate side effect of dreaming big:

Life always seems to fall a little short.

Preparing for travel memories

As an avid reader and fanciful imaginer from a young age, I am particularly skilled in the art of over-expecting. I am always wishing for the unlikely, waiting for the unexpected, and expecting the world.

Maybe some people would call this hopeful. Anyone who knows me, however, tends to call it unrealistic.  

As an English and Studio Art major in a stifling world of pragmatism, I'm not new to the renunciation. I'm not new to disappointment, either. When you have high hopes, reality hits you even harder.

But I'm not ready to give up on dreaming. In fact, dreaming is what has gotten me out of the ordinary, out of my head, and onto a plane to London. Because there's a secret to unrealistic expectations. They're only unrealistic if you don't get up and make them happen.

This is what I realized when I decided to study abroad.

I've always wanted to see the world, but — as reality conditions dreamers to do — I'd started to have an inkling that maybe it wouldn't happen for me. The logistics of it were overwhelming, the cost was astronomical, and the prospect was scary. I thought about all of those reasons not to try, and I used them to talk myself out of it over and over.

But then I thought about something else. If I waited now, if I chose what was easier - to do nothing - then when would I ever start to make things happen in my life? Opportunities weren't just going to fall into my lap - that isn't how life works. But if I took a leap, if I worked for it, I knew I could make this more than a dream.

I realized that if I really wanted to see the world, I had to do it now.

Making it to London hasn't been easy. There have been piles of paperwork, multitudes of expenses and daunting to-do lists. There have been months of over-thinking, days when I thought I would drown in the stress of preparation, and nights when I wanted to take it all back. But through all the scholarship applications and travel documentation and packing anxiety, there has been the reality of London ahead of me — the reality I made.

I chose England because it's where my imagination has always taken me. It's the birthplace of all the literature I love, the home of the writers that inspired me to write, and an exciting blend of history and diversity in art, culture, entertainment and cuisine.

I feel like London is just one of those places where there's always something new to discover — something majestic and historic, something modern and invigorating, something raw and natural, or something small that glitters in the window of a coffee shop.  

Maybe it will be intimidating and vast and new, but I don't want to be afraid. I want to be brave enough to go out and explore the world and myself. I want to travel across the country, make expeditions to even more far-off places, and discover all the eccentricities of the city. I want to explore every corner, because I know that this time, reality won't fall short of my expectations — it will be more than I imagined.