All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go

Yes, this is what my life has come to. I can't get this John Denver song out of my head.

So here's what's happened in the last week: My mom sent me an email on Wednesday afternoon to say that she was devastated by my email. I actually thought it was about as good a response as I could have gotten under the circumstances, because she said that she really wanted to talk on the phone before I left the country so that she could say "I love you." But D.'s reaction, not on the first read but on subesquent readings of the email, was less positive, since there was certainly some guilt-tripping going on. Ah well. We did talk last night, and it was mostly kind of inconsequential stuff, but we did talk a little about the email exchange. I pointed out more than once that I was not in any crisis, that I had sent the email because she had asked, not because I was deeply unhappy. She did a little more guilt-tripping on the phone and also clearly kind of wanted me to be taking sides in the conflict between her and my brother, but I tried to remain a voice of calm. I did say that I thought a problematic pattern in our family was that we are all very judgmental (echoing a point I'd made in the email), that we have trouble acknowledging that someone could do or think differently from us and yet not be doing anything wrong, and that I thought that one thing going on between her and my brother is that they are each simultaneously judging and feeling judged. She didn't respond to that point -- just silence on the other end of the phone. This judgmentalism is something I've worked very hard on rectifying in myself for probably the last fifteen years, and I think I've made quite a bit of progress but not eradicated the tendency; I don't actually think that either of them sees any problem with being judgmental and in fact they sort of pride themselves on it, so it's no wonder that they butt heads. Anyway, it wasn't that long a conversation, because of course I had a long list of things to do last night, but it was definitely the most stressful part of my "to do" list last night. Thank you, all of you, for your incredibly supportive comments on my last post about all of this!

On to brighter topics, we leave for the airport in15 minutes! I'd gotten my bags packed Wednesday night, knowing that in doing so I'd realize all sorts of last-minute tasks I needed to do, and that indeed proved to be the case. I was crazy-organized (for me), and actually slept quite well last night because I was so on top of everything. ... And then this morning, 10 minutes after D. dropped me off at school, I realized I'd forgotten to pack the cord to charge my Kindle. Aargh! I called D., who generously said that she'd get it at home and bring it back to me at school. While she was home, she decided to take just one more gander around the place ... and found that I'd also forgotten to pack the camera charger. Yikes! (Although at least in the latter case I had packed the extra camera battery and battery charger, so that wouldn't have been a disaster.) She came back to school, and when I ran out to the car to get them from her, I burst into tears, because I was feeling guilty about her double roundtrip to school and because I was having to say goodbye again and because the fact that I'd forgotten both of these things had shaken my confidence that I'm actually prepared for this trip. But I pulled myself together after a couple of minutes, and now I'm just that combination of excitement and keyed-up nervousness that marks all of my travel efforts.

I decided not to bring a laptop on this trip -- radical choice! -- so no updates from the road, but there will undoubtedly be pictures and stories galore once I return. See you all in a couple of weeks!

Comments

[susan]

Travel safely! Can't wait to hear all about it.

And I'm impressed with the thoughtful way you're reacting to your mother right now. That's hard work. Good for you.

[Janice]

Have a wonderful trip. Hugs for D and for you on all the effort to get ready: I know it will be worthwhile.

[Lilian]

you made the best decision not bringing the laptop -- unless you had a good plug adaptor (we only did after my mother-in-law gave us hers). The only reason I didn't regret bringing the laptop was so I could download the photos into it (I took over 4,000), because we were unable to use wireless in many places.