6 Weeks from Launch

Our To-do List is being whittled down. I have accommodations already booked for a week over Christmas and a full month in Merida. I’ve touched up our trip plan nearly every day this week and everything seems to add up (a little research revealed that visiting either Belize or Guatemala was going to add extreme difficulty with Gidget and new rabies rules at the US border, so that got nixed. CDC animal importation info here). We are working diligently on finding a short term renter for our home as well as the someone trustworthy and able-bodied to look after Mr. Oats. Both are proving tricker than we would want, but not impossible. In short, things are coming together and it’s down to riding out the final weeks of work.

I am brimming with excitement and anxiety in equal measure and my mood of the day seems to bounce back and forth between these two states in the longest game of table tennis (I would say it’s more like pickle ball, but there have been complaints in my neighbourhood about how loud the sport is and I don’t want to be a part of that problem). We’re nearing a point where Sarah and I are just stewing, waiting for the thing without being able to influence it any meaningful way.

There is a new feeling nosing its way through, as well. I want to call in invincibility, but that feels like I may be goading some unknowable forces to rain pain down on me and put me back in my place. The new sensation is this: I can’t be hurt by work stress, by a cloudy day, by my cooking with too little salt, or whatever other petty thing can infiltrate an otherwise contented life. I’m not free yet (still some weeks to go) but I am close enough to feel some of the effects. It’s very interesting.

This isn’t the end of stress, the end of worry, of being bummed out, of cooking a substandard meal and being pissy about it, but it has changed and I am very keen to see where it leads. A weight is lifting, a shroud, and I can see further than ever before.

Not too much time to dwell on it. We still need to stick the landing. The list of things to get done is very real now. There is enough on our calendar to distract us from pondering too deeply or being overwhelmed by the realness of it all. Check back in three weeks though, and I’m going to be like a kid in the last week of school just about bursting to be released. It is inevitable.

[Photo credit: ngader]