Travel Anxiety

I leave for my next big trip soon and I have a lot of anxiety about it. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I worry about missing my flight, or missing a shirt I opted to not pack, or missing a pair of pants because I’ve decided to only bring three pairs and a skirt.

All I know is I keep forgetting certain words and last night when I emptied the dishwasher, I went to put two drinking glasses in the freezer.

It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.

Everything is under control.

The shoe dilemma continues, and I have two sneaker-type shoes to bring and a pair of sandals. The sandals can pass for dressy, but it’s not looking like it will be hot at our destination. So over the last 24 hours, I’ve been fairly obsessed with finding a pair of nice flats.

This is sort of like how four days ago I decided that what my travel wardrobe REALLY needed was a gray cardigan. It will go with everything and won’t be the usual black! So I went online and bought four different sizes, just to be sure. The people at the Amazon Locker office where I drop off returns could make a drinking game out of me because I go there so often. Yesterday I returned six pairs of shoes. Three pairs to Amazon, and three via UPS. It’s like making money! Except it’s not.

So the flats. I don’t have any nice shoes for going out to dinner or whatever. This morning I arrived in my work’s neighborhood early so I went to Target. I found a pair of black flats that would do just the trick, but they didn’t come in my often hard to find size ten. Someone at Target looked them up for me and said the Watertown Target would have them in my size. I went into work, attended a meeting, got some filing and emailing done, and used my lunch hour to run to the Watertown Target, where I was greeted with a wall of chaos on which shoes were tossed. The store is under redesign and the place was a hot mess. My breathing increased as I searched.

I searched for my shoes with no luck. I went to the counter and they confirmed that they do not, in fact, have those shoes. “Sometimes the online listing is wrong,” said the woman.

Then I had a thought. Libby had mentioned that she would be packing a large suitcase. Maybe she could pick a pair up for me at a Target in FL? I texted her, asking if this was a possibility, and she gave the very appropriate answer of no, that would not be possible. I think she as stressed out as I am, and my trip doesn’t include a presentation of my work to the attendees at a food photography conference.

Meanwhile, half the time I’m trying to be good with my money (Friday’s payday can’t come soon enough), and the other half I’m seeing stuff like this and thinking “I HAVE to get those!”

 

 

I did not need to get those and I, in fact, did not get them.

I did, however, buy new sunglasses because this very morning I couldn’t find mine and if I have to buy sunglasses at the airport because mine don’t show up I will be very annoyed. (Mine will show up and I’ll return the back-ups I bought today).

In the end, I bought these. Whatever, they’re fine.

Do I have enough packing cubes? Do I have all the toiletries I want? Are these clothes going to last me? Do I have enough SD cards? Do I have all my cables and chargers and do I want to eat a meal while I wait for my evening flight at the airport? Yes. OK, what are you going to make (shops for ingredients). Snacks? What about snacks?

I want the house to not be a mess when I get home so this morning I put the compost out and dealt with all the trash. I am not looking forward to returning to find what my front yard will look like because I didn’t find time to weed whack it. Last night I got a hair cut to fix the mess that happened on my birthday and because my hair color looks weird, I redyed the purple last night too (it looks like a Barney homicide when I rinse off in the tub. That amuses me).

Then there’s the dog. I need to portion out her food and make sure it’s put in bags along with leashes, etc. And she, the poor girl, is very unnerved by all my unnnervedness.

Meanwhile, there’s the issue of being diabetic. Do I have all the pharmaceuticals I need? Reservoirs, and cannulas, insulin itself, back-up insulin pump, batteries (they can be bought, you know, Cyd!) and other meds, alcohol wipes, and all the other tapes and ointments, etc, that I have to have on me? How much of it do I want to put in my carry-on and how much in the luggage (this is all to a science by now but still).

My glucose sensor lasts six days, then I have to charge it’s transmitter and switch out the sensor itself. I realized a few days ago that today would be a change day. Since they last exactly six days, I had to think about when it would expire. While in another country. In a different time zone. So, I timed putting in the new one so that it would die around 10PM at the other end. Minimal disruption to my day and easier to do the replacement process (which requires time for charging, then a two hours warm-up once the new one is in, then a calibration after two hours, then another after 6 hours (after that it’s every twelve)

I do not have a spare sensor, so if the one I’m bringing with me has an issue, I have no backup. I called Medtronic, and they do not provide extras since they are so expensive. So, I just have to cross my fingers that it will work fine. I don’t have reason to think otherwise and luckily, if something goes awry, it just means I wear the insulin pump the old way like I have for many many years.

OK, gotta go make more lists to calm myself down.