Anticipatory Anxiousness

As I write this work will soon take me out of town for a few days. This happens with my job on occasion. It is a necessary thing for how I earn my living. Still, I am rarely thrilled with the idea of being away from those I love for any length of time.

This trip will take me to central California for five days and nights with the getting-there and the getting-back-from-there taking the better part of one day apiece. At this moment it is still a handful of days away from when I leave. Even now the trip and the things I need to do for the trip swirl in my head like a whirlwind that won’t settle away from any other one thought about anything else for very long.

The idea of seeing somewhere new is exciting and something that will be enjoyable. It’s just the getting there and the getting back that get to me. It starts with an early morning ride to catch a shuttle which will then transport me to the airport all the while hoping the shuttle driver is sober, sane and safe. It’s the airport that I loathe. It’s the standing in line to check in, it’s the security check which often leaves any rational person with very little dignity, it’s the wait-to-board while bored, it’s the finding where to sit and storing carry-ons, it’s the hoping and praying that you won’t be seated beside a drunk, a loudmouth, a just-married couple, a soon-to-be divorced couple, a person with a weak bladder, a person who doesn’t quite understand how important personal space is to some of us or someone who for whatever reason does not believe in using deodorant. It’s the getting off the plane, it’s hopefully retrieving luggage in one piece, it’s finding your way around the airport to find a way out of the airport, it’s the taxi or shuttle ride to the hotel, it’s the hotel registration process, it’s the actual business that has to be conducted. It’s the getting there and then it’s the getting back because before you know it, you reverse the whole scenario and find yourself on the way home.

It is enough to make me want to wish the time away so that it was all over before it even starts. That is something though I find myself doing with enough things in life already.
It’s the impatience I show when I can’t wait for a train to pass so I have to make a demolition-derby-dash to beat a red light to a side street in hopes of outrunning the train to cross the tracks before it gets to the next street. It’s the threat of wintry weather that makes me long for summer days then when summer comes it’s the longing for cooler days and maybe a passing snowflake or two instead of enjoying each season and each day for what they are. It’s my being incredulous to someone when they don’t understand what is so obvious to me but still so mysterious to them.

Some might say it is a good thing to not be satisfied with how some things are and I would agree. Still, knowing what those things are and when to act on them rests on a fine line and recognizing them and what to do with them can only come from wisdom. And that is something I understand also. Still, I struggle. I recognize the time each of us has been given is precious. Even if I forget, people often tell me how time shouldn’t be wished away. Usually the ones telling me this are people with more varied life experience than I have. Still, somehow sometimes it all doesn’t sink in how the wisdom often residing in others should be heeded because the voices telling me this speak from happiness or regret or guilt or some other place but spoken with a voice soaked in experience. And if all that doesn’t drive the point home even more, those often speaking from experience top it off with sharing how time is a rare gift that keeps giving and giving until one day, sometimes with little or no notice, it is all gone and when it leaves, it is forever gone.

Still, here I am putting together lists in my head about what I need to do for the trip ahead. Anxious, a bit nervous, all the while watching time tick on and creeping closer to when I have to go.

I hope I remember my deodorant.