28 Days, 18 Hours, 55 Minutes

But who's counting?

I am having dreams of losing paperwork and credit cards and ending up penniless in Paris. Thank goodness I'm going to Scotland!

After all the careful planning I did, my computer died. The hard drive doesn't work. I can't get my trip data off no matter how hard I plead and whine and cry over the darn thing.

All I can say is, "Thank GOD I printed that hardcopy!" Yes, I actually had every important document printed and filed in my trip notebook. I then turned all the hardcopy into a .pdf and uploaded it to Google docs! No darn hard drive is gonna ruin my holiday!

But, here I sit in my lonely little room with my cute little dogs and the fear sits just at the back of my mind. It happens on some trips... where I begin to be just a little scared of hurling myself into the void. Tossing myself to the four winds and to an unknown adventure.

I just tell myself to breathe. Just breathe. I'm drawn to adventure, but the very thing I'm drawn to causes so much anxiety. International travel can be like that sometimes. Mind you, I've never once regretted a trip. Not even the last horrible trip to Paris. It taught me something... never take trips to Paris. :) It was an adventure that was tried and failed, but at least tried.

I hear the voice of Max von Sydow ominously echoing from the past...

"Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror." (Flash Gordon, the movie)


Pathetic earthlings

And I am shaking, but I am moving forward.
The day of the trip, I imagine will go something like this... I pack up the dogs and the luggage. I look pensively at the home I'm leaving for two weeks. I wonder if everything will be ok. I look at the dogs I'll be leaving. My babies. They will miss me, but not as much as I'll miss them. And my new friend, Priscilla. I'll miss her too.

With a huge gulp, I know I'll enter the airport in Houston. I'll calm myself by writing in my journal and having a drink at the bar. I'll magically push everything - all the sadness and the dread and the anxiety - into the background. My mind will open and the awe and expectancy of a new adventure will fill me. I'll step on the plane.

And go... go baby. GO!

28 days. 18 hours. 45 minutes.