The Pre-Departure Blues

We depart two weeks from today. The house-sitter is hired. All reser-vations are made and re-confirmed. There are just a few minor tasks to do before we leave and lethargy has set in. For me anyway, there are three very distinct phases to every trip. The first is in the planning and is all about the promise of what could be. The third is the trip itself. The second is the period of limbo in between when there is little left to plan and plenty to fret over.

The planning fascinates me. It's like a complex puzzle that slowly takes shape and forms a beautiful picture over time. There is so much learning involved. Each year I learn more about how to best search for airfares; more about train travel and auto rentals; more about how best to find and book lodgings and more about how to do all of this a bit more inexpensively. Along the way, I read a lot about each area we are going to visit and it's rich history. Through the computer screen, I have seen so many photos, video clips, maps and satellite images of the places we hope to see that I almost fell as if I have already been there.

Once the trip actually begins, adrenaline takes over, the sightseeing begins, and we are so busy there is little time to worry (and to give myself some credit, pretty much everything goes exactly as planned).

But in that short time in between, I find a certain lethargy sets in. Little planning tasks that I would have eagerly tackled months ago, I now find reasons to put off until later. I can't help but wonder if there was something that could have been planned better if I had been a little smarter about it, but is now too late to change. I want to things to be perfect, but of course that is unrealistic to expect. That greedy little creature in the back of my mind starts dreaming about the next trip and pretty soon I catch myself looking up airfares to some imagined destination in 2011. Then I scold myself for not focusing on the present and keeping on task. Yet there is little left to do, and that is the problem. The calendar keeps relentlessly ticking forward and I find myself almost wishing the trip would hold off a while longer.

Meanwhile, we are caught up in the onslaught of end-of-school-year activities and obligations. The weather has turned nice, yet there is little time to get outside and do family bike rides or picnics and really enjoy the outdoors. Planting season has come but we are still trying to find the time to get the last few plants in the ground and do some landscaping and yard maintenance so that it won't look like a neglected jungle when we return in late July.

I need to kick myself in the backside a little and snap out of it. It's going to be great. There will be some glitches, to be sure. It will rain some days. We will get a little lost driving once or twice. Some sights will prove underwhelming. But overall, I'm sure it will be wonderful.

It will....it will....it will...