How to Avoid a Pre-Departure Panic Attack in 8 Easy Steps

Step 1: Refuse to quit your 9-5 job until the last possible minute. Being forced to wake up early and go to bed early leaves little time for pondering the terrors of being abroad.  Practice the zen of the cash register, my friends.

Step 2: Find a tv show or book that you've forgotten about or everyone has been talking about and become ridiculously invested it. Worry about the problems of fictional people and remind yourself that your life could be much worse.  Like Breaking Bad worse.

Step 3: Take up a large, time consuming project.  Like souffle-making.  Or knitting a sweater on size zero needles.  Or an enormous cross stitch pattern.  Something that goes along well with Step 2.

Step 4: Don't pack until the last possible minute. Otherwise, you'll just keep having to do laundry because you'll take favorites out of commission. No thank you.

Step 5: Visit with friends and family and try to avoid talking about going abroad.  Pretend you have a normal job like a normal college graduate to obscure the truth that you're absconding off to Europe. (Plus, bonus points, you get to be with the people you love.)

Step 6: Take out the empty suitcases you plan on packing at the 11th hour in an attempt to fool the Parental Units into believing that you have outgrown your college ways of procrastination.

Step 7: Every time you feel like crying, swallow it deep inside you.  Hysterical sobbing should be reserved for the plane ride.

And...

Step 8: Make sure you put your passport in spot where you can remember where you put it when you're frantically packing on the eve of traveling.