 Can't Take That Away |
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I predict that by the time I get home, Shawn will be in the cage, Jack and Jennifer will be alternately falling down ravines, and Nicole will be trying to seduce Brady. Still. I am going to try to pop into an internet cafe every now and then, so if you want to know where I am and what I'm doing, join the notify list. I do not have a clue how to work my dad's camera. I am kind of starting to approach hysteria, like I just want to laugh and spaz out for no reason. I think I might have pulled something in my back while trying on my backpack earlier and am stretching a lot so as to prevent further strain. Because a thrown out back would not be awesome. I don't know. I don't think I'm really processing that I'm leaving. I feel kind of paralyzed, and now all I can do is sit here and watch General Hospital. I do not know how the actress who plays Alexis and who was once Julia on Santa Barbara just continues to get better as the decades go by. LOVE HER. My mom's coming over shortly to bring me a smoothie and help me get myself organized. Clearly this is not rocket science. I don't know why I feel so overwhelmed. I should be excited! So I am. I am excited. I shouldn't have taken the afternoon off, because I'm driving myself nuts, but I'm excited. So. I am going to look past the stupid stress caused by PACKING of all stupid things and focus on the good stuff. I will surely have a safe and serene flight. I will surely enjoy my solo day and night in the Latin Quarter. I will surely find my sister either at our meeting place or at our back-up plan, the hotel. We will surely enjoy spazzing around Paris and going to Normandy and then going to the UK. I will surely enjoy this longest of vacations I have ever taken, second only to my only other trip to Europe six years ago, and the longest vacation I have ever taken from this job. I will surely find the museums and the sights and the sounds that I am meant to find and be filled with the richness of what I find and not with the emptiness of what I might miss. I will surely embarrass myself multiple times over in front of the natives but I will always try to be gracious and friendly and it will all be okay. I am not the first American tourist to set foot overseas and make an ass of oneself. I will surely realize that my parents are taking good care of my animals and my house and release myself from worry because they will all be here when I get back. I will surely pay zero attention to any thoughts of dieting and eat the living life out of everything made of bread and chocolate that I can get my hands on. I will surely drink coffee all day long and not worry about the caffeine keeping me up at night. I will surely drink lots of pints in the UK and instead of being a melancholy drunk I will surely be a jovial one. I will surely relish this time with my sister before she goes away to school. I will surely figure out the camera and take some pictures that if not artistically brilliant will capture my memories which is more important to me anyway. I will surely remind myself over and over of how lucky I am to be jetting away for two weeks to faraway places and that I'm at a place in my life where I can do that. It means that I am free, and that is something that I should never forget in my singleton lament. I will surely, surely, surely find my smile, and I will come home and tell everyone all about it. And even though taking a vacation is really no big fucking deal, to me, it kind of is. Because I am somewhat psychotically afraid of little and big things, sanely or not (mostly not), from my house burning down to a tree falling on it to something happening to my animals to germs on the hotel sheets to getting mugged to getting a foot fungus on the hostel shower floor (because God help me, I, who cannot shake someone's hand without immediately thereafter disinfecting my own, will at some point be sharing a bathroom) to the plane falling out of the sky, and I am going anyway. This might seem like nothing to some people, but to me it is something and something quite big. I think deep down that I fear the rug being pulled out from under me. And I know, or I'm starting to know, that the most lasting impact of last year, and the ripples that it sent out into the future, my future, which is now, is that worry. And I'm really sick of being so submissive to these irrational fears instead of truly living deep and sucking out all the marrow of life, which is what I've always, my whole life, believed that we all should do, and somehow that has slipped away from me, and I really do want it back. And I think I try to exert this control over these uncontrollable things, like catching some dreaded disease from the bacteria on the seats at movies or lightning striking my house, because I think that if I worry enough about their happening, if they do, at least I will have been prepared on some level because I've been almost expecting it. And I am starting to realize what a waste of life that is, because it's a lot harder to find the joy in life when all you do is wring your hands about all of the terrible things that could but very like won't happen. And as last year (the year of hell) ended and this new one (this new one of hope) began, I resolved in this new year that what I would be is brave, and I feel like with this trip, I am being brave. And I think that in addition to all of the fun I will have and all of the things I will see and all the people I will meet, I will mostly feel a little bit proud of myself. Because hopefully if I squeeze my eyes shut to block out these fears and enjoy the hell out of the beauty and the adventure and my very own self, maybe I will be able to finally let them go. About this time in ...
© Copyright 2004 elb |
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