We are now in the T-minus state of departing Melbourne, and then Australia, for a year. As in, T-minus: 17 days of work left. And T-minus: 33 days until we fly out of Melbourne. And T-minus: several hours until I lose my damned mind.
I woke up at 4am last night (or this morning). I finally drifted off to sleep around 6 – for an hour – and then staggered out of bed at 7. My body is exhausted, but at 4am my brain is doing gymnastics. It’s the details, you see. The details are both exquisite and excruciating.
For example, I decided at around 4:30am, that I should print and laminate a little credit card-sized card that says, ‘Hello, we’re staying at ROAM in Ubud,’ with the address and ‘thank you’ – written in Indonesian, so we can give it to taxi drivers while we’re staying in Bali.
It’s a brilliant idea, I agree. So, I did that today on my lunch break. But, did I really have to come up with it in the middle of the night???
In the past week, I have made multiple messes in our house while clearing things out. For some reason, everything I’m sorting through needs to explode and cover every surface in the entire apartment in order for me to make order from it. I have subsequently thrown out, gifted or sold around 1/3 of what I own. I keep reminding Ben and the cat to move around so I don’t accidentally put them on EBAY.
And the lists! Every time I check something off the ToDo list, I get to enjoy about 30 seconds of satisfaction before my mind starts panicking about the 75 million other things I need to do.
I keep reminding myself that in just over a month, none of this will matter. It will all be done – or it won’t – and I will be on a plane with my carefully-curated luggage tucked safely beneath me in the luggage compartment.
And then, the real adventure begins…
Sandy Barker | Author 