surrender

So, 5 weeks to go and I'm wondering whether I should be fussing more than I am. I'm calm as Buddha, not fretting all that much about small practicalities (yet?) because the most important bits have already fallen into place.

Moments from the last two months, step-wise:

1) Quit nursing school in Jo'burg (stay tuned for the fuller version, some time in the future)
2) Get accepted at Birthwise, a.k.a. Most Bodacious Midwifery School On Earth
3) Tell boyfriend, parents, friends, and other loved ones about my new hair-brained scheme
4) Ask lovely Papa for mun-neeeee
5) Put beloved car up for sale, cry inside, then realise it's just a car
6) Beg N to absolve me of guilt now that I won't be in Jo'burg in October and will therefore no longer be her doula at E's birth
7) Be told by both N and P, separately: "C, I will slap you so damn hard if you don't go to Maine and become a midwife already"
8) Surrender to my happy-but-daunting fate and get school to send me paperwork for US Immigration
9) Wait four long, anxious hours in the rain outside the Consulate General of the United States
10) Step up to booth for interview and answer questions like: "So, you are going to study midwifery?" and "What does your father do?" (Such an anti-climax! What happened to the interrogation?)
11) Obtain student visa with decisive slam of official stamp on my yellow form (or was it the pink one?)
12) Book trans-Atlantic flight and cringe inwardly as my carbon footprint swells
13) Spend three hours on Amazon drooling over the required booklist for school, including Davis, Frye and Varney
14) Place order for my first-ever Student Midwife's Instrument Kit, including a lavender-coloured sphygmo cuff of my own choosing and ... a foetoscope!
15) Stand in front of cupboard and calculate how all my shoes will fit into apparenly teeny-tiny suitcase
16) Decide that midwives don't need lots of shoes anyway
17) Realise that I am my own person, and don't have to fit the student-midwife stereotype (read: I am not compelled to alternate only between Birkenstocks and Crocs)
18) Contemplate whether midwifery is indeed right for me, given my penchant for pretty footwear (which is not moulded out of coloured plastic)
19) Make tea and tell myself to shut it
20) Read passages from Birth Without Violence again and kick self for ever doubting the rightness of midwifery