A big Thankyou and a last week request

Over the past weeks and months everyone has been incredibily supportive of my upcoming trip. They've listened to me ad nauseum go on about snow and ice skating, New York, London and shared generously all my excitement of my trip. Those of you who haven't had or don't have the opportunity to go overseas and would like to... I haven't heard one word from you in envy. Others have cooked me dinner, offered to keep me company whilst I was packing and my Mum and Dad have helped in dozens of big and small ways. I love you both forever.

It may be my fault though. In an effort to assure you all that I am confident, organised, healthy and qualified to undertake this journey despite your warnings about muggers, unemployment, pneumonia, hypothermia, communication barriers, friendlessness and homelessness, I may have portrayed myself as the one thing I'm not- impenetrable.

My last request is one week of 100% encouragement from everyone. I have heard months of your concerns for my well-being. Now, please is the time to can it. Now I am so close to going I am plagued with the accumulation of everyone elses' well-intended worries and I cannot afford to have my self-confidence eroded when it's game time. By the way, I am happy for anyone to talk behind my back about all the awful things that may happen to me overseas if it relieves your need to talk about it :-) As for me, I am having difficulty sleeping. And it's not because I can see myself walking down Broadway.

Another strangely curious thing is happening. People are being honest with me now about what they think of me. Now, most of you express yourselves openly anyway. But I have been really touched by the generous encouragement people have offered. The darker side is that any grievances that have been held onto seem to also be coming to the fore because I am leaving.

If I have disappointed anyone I hope to be forgiven without being surprised that people I care about have held grievances back out of courtesy and now feel compelled to let me know the true state of play. This comes at the time when I am least able to do anything about it. It's hurtful. If I have to address them I will but the timing is difficult.

Perhaps more amusingly, there is more of a tendancy to get sentimental about the person going. I've watched the movies. It is this point in the story when the male friend/s front up and confess that they really did love you all along after all and they either want you to

1. stay and not go and live happily ever after
2. just know that even though you're leaving you take their broken heart with you

Personally, I think both of those options suck. For everyone. For the record, that hasn't happened yet because I've been cloistered at my parents' house. But if it's going to happen, it will happen in the next week. So colour me arrogant for even entertaining the idea that something like that will happen.

But if any of you are thinking it- can it. It might work in the movies but not in life. It doesn't take much courage to confess when there is no prospect of committment because the person is going away. You don't even get the exercise award for plucking up the courage and then running away yourself. Telling me and letting me go away is being a chicken, and lazy. If you think I'm being hard, remember this, I haven't moved outside a 10 km radius for 11 years. I haven't been hard to find.

Having said that, I do hope to experience another movie before I leave Australia. But only in the cinema. I wish everyone here their own happy ending.