Trippin’

By Mir
July 7, 2006
Category Growing

I am the world’s worst traveller.

World’s. Worst.

I’m prone to motion sickness. I wear dorky wristbands with pressure points. I have to pee a lot. If I’m driving I’m a cranky driver and a lousy passenger. If I’m flying I’m nervous.

Worse than all of these, I like things to be JUST SO. Do you know how often things are JUST SO when you go outside of your tightly controlled home environment? Hint: NOT OFTEN ENOUGH.

Oddly enough, I love to travel. I look forward to it. I get excited about it. I have trouble sleeping the night before, and stare up at the ceiling in the dark, curling and uncurling my toes, willing myself to fall asleep so that I can wake up and get going.

So, today (gah, YESTERDAY; I have got to stop staying up past midnight), I did everything one does before taking a trip. Inbetween making my children miserable and getting my regular work done, I wrangled load after load of laundry. I paid my bills online and I scrubbed the kitchen sink. (Not at the same time. And don’t ask; if you don’t get it, you don’t understand. There is zen in cleaning the house before you leave it.) I peered suspiciously at my clothes and mixed and matched outfits and pondered shoes and painted my toenails. I cleaned out my car and pulled old receipts from my purse and took out the trash. I found my Sudoku book and sharpened pencils and cursed at my broken MP3 player and packed a few more books.

Now I’ve got about twelve hours before I leave, and I should be in bed, but I’m not ready yet. I need to go over my bag again, need to go over what all I’ve packed and whether I did everything I need to do.

I am going over this last week… this last year… the last two, three, ten, fifteen years.

Every moment in life moves us along to the next, and every experience prepares us for what is to follow. I want to know when I started on this particular path. I want to pinpoint each event which has prepared me, unwittingly or not, for what is about to come. I can’t, of course. So many times in recent memory I have struggled to understand WHY things were happening as they did, and what meaning I was supposed to glean from them. I may have a better sense, now, but I’ll still have to wait and see, I suppose.

There’s only so much you can figure out in the dark, even if you’re really good at curling and uncurling your toes. Sometimes you just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I’m about to embark on an adventure. I’ve done all the preparation I can, and now there’s nothing left to do but… go.

Wish me luck.

25 Comments

  1. Cele

    Well I see you have the pre-preparation techinques all down pat. I hope when you get their you relax, enjoy, indulge…

  2. Mel

    Good luck! (I totally get the cleaning thing before you go . . . my husband does NOT.)

  3. Birchsprite

    where are you going though?

  4. Elleoz

    Have a safe and happy trip. And good luck!

    I totally get the having a clean house before going on a trip thing. Vacations, etc are stressful enough without having to come home to chaos at home.

    I can’t wait to hear all about it!

  5. chris

    Have a great trip!!!

  6. Latte Man

    Gee, maybe (just maybe) if you could get a good sleep the night before, you wouldn’t be such a basket case when you travel?

    (Yeah, I know easier said than done)

  7. Bob

    well, just be all mysterious then. If you think I’M gonna be kept on tenterhooks so you can go on some life-changing/life-culminating journey…….you’re damned right.

    I hope that this is all you want or need it to be. I’m pulling for you.

  8. Lesley

    But will you post while you’re gone???

  9. dad

    Good Luck!

    Have a great trip. Enjoy it for whatever it is or turns out to be. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do….that, of course, will give you substantial lattitude.

  10. Monica

    Have a great trip! I just spent the last three days planning and preparing for the trip we’re leaving on this morning. (an hour ago, HA) You would think that after all this time I would accept the fact that getting three other people to be ready to leave when I want them to is never gonna happen.

    Looking forward to reading about your adventures when I return!

  11. Aimee

    Have a FANTASTIC trip! Even if you can’t predict the outcome of an adventure, sometimes the going is the important part.

  12. Mike

    Aimee hit the nail on the head here. And whether this trip (or life), turns out JUST SO…I, for one, am proud as hell of you for signing up and shipping out for it when it would have been the easiest thing in the world to come up with excuses to avoid. Bravo, Mir…have a wonderful trip.

  13. Mom Nancy

    I believe Mir is headed to BlogHer! Have fun!! Can’t wait to hear all about it!

  14. Brenda

    Mir, have a wonderful trip. The weather here has been beautiful (a little warm) and dry. If you have allergies, everything is in full bloom, so pack any medications you might need.

    And get someone to drive you around so you can go wine-tasting and brewery sampling.

    You’re single, child-free for the weekend, and you deserve all the enjoyment you can get.

  15. Chewie

    OH SQUEEEEEEEEEE!

    There she goes. I’ve loved her and squeezed her and parted her hair straight and given her a back pack with a nice sack lunch…and there she goes. Did anyone get a picture of her before she left?

    Cause she left on a really cool fact finding mission…I can’t wait to hear about it.

    Supporting you like a good, if somewhat distant, bra.

    Chewie

  16. Kira

    *Lining myself up with the rest of Mir’s cheerleaders*
    GOOOOOOOOO, MIR!
    Wishing you nothing but the best, baby.

  17. Amy-Go

    oh tulip…God bless.

  18. InterstellarLass

    Have fun! Can’t wait to hear about it when you get back!

  19. Lin

    There is an old Southern expression which, for all I know, was perhaps only used by Southern African Americans, because when I was young (1950s) an elderly (she was in her 80s) black woman used it to describe that antsy, can’t settle feeling you get before taking a trip; she called it “journey proud.” I think it’s perfect and my family has used it ever since.

  20. ben

    I like “journey proud” and I’m gonna try and work that into my vocabulary.

    Have an awesome trip, can’t wait for the video, and oh yes —

    SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

    ;)

  21. Lisa

    Have a fantastic trip!

  22. Chookooloonks

    Oh, way to be mysterious Mir, you’re worse than me. ;o)

    However, since I do know where you’re going, kow that I’ve been cheering you on since your plane ostensibly took off around noon yesterday. And I’ll be cheering you until you get back online again.

    Go, Mir, Go!!!

  23. cmhl

    girl, I’m with you on the motion sickness. I get queasy on a straight road that is perfectly level if I am in the back seat.

  24. onetallmomma

    My kids don’t understand the ZEN of leaving the house clean before we leave on a trip…but they will.

    Keep your eye peeled for cute and eligible men. You never know:) (I know, odds are low at BlogHer, but still.)

  25. powermomma

    Eek! I stumbled on your blog for the first time and am laughing out loud. I MUST clean my whole house top to bottom, I stay up all night in insane excitement, but then my defense mechanism for motion sickness is to immediately pass out into a deep sleep the second the car crosses 30 miles or the plane takes off and then I miss everything.

    BTW, congrats! Very cool.

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