Unofficial beginning

Although I am not yet living in Paris, and am still not finished with my Visa and documents, I feel as though I have just started my new beginning.
At the moment, I am in the office/makeshift guest room of Nina's house, lounging around with a new book and my teddy bear. I find myself thinking about, and sincerely questioning, where I stand and what it is that lies before me.
I finally graduated, I had a wonderful year hosting Nina as an exchange student, I learned so much more about myself, and just how much I don't know, than I would have ever thought I could learn in one year. I actually completed the majority of the list of goals I had for myself, which never happens, and I gained a perspective of who I am in relation to the person I hope to become. I even got back some of the optimism that I lost throughout the process if living in high school angst.
After an exciting and exhausting summer of work, play, and late nights with friends and ice cream, it's all winding down. My class, the family I grew so fond of over the past three years, is separating, and going off to study and live and learn in different places. I am far away from them, and that's a bit frightening. At the moment, there is literally an ocean between us.
So now, here I am. It's just me for a while, a me that's always changing and wondering. It's fantastic to be here, and to think about, but it makes me a little nervous. It was so exciting to see Nina again, meet her wonderful family, take hundreds of pictures, buy little Dutch shoes in Holland, go to a club in downtown Oldenburg for my eighteenth birthday, and start riding a bike again... But now that it's just me for a little while, I'm realizing that the amazement of it all is going to fade, the train-rides and new countries will become things that I take for granted, and soon, I am going to have a whole life over here.
It's wonderful and exciting and glorious, but at the same time, it scares me. What if, once the shimmer wears away, I don't like it? What happens when I feel as though I'm more lost than I have ever been? Who will be there when I don't know if I can really do it, and all I want to do is cry and find a familiar face? What if it isn't all that I dreamed of, and the lights turn into nothing but glare and all the romance and naive hopes dwindle... then what?

It certainly is all new, and definitely the beginning of something. I'm mostly optimistic, and very much looking forward to the next year, but today, for some reason, I can't help but let my doubts get to me as I take off on this unofficial new beginning.