Packing

Tomorrow I am going on a weekend adventure - not a retreat exactly, but a time for renewal. I have been pressed for time all day, on a tight schedule packed with all kinds of activities. Finally I am home after work and choir practice. I pick up, fix dinner, do some dishes, and manage to get to my room before midnight.

I need to leave almost right after work, so I know I won't have time to pack tomorrow. I really need to get it done tonight before my head hits the pillow. I sit on the bed and try to think what I will need. I have a list of suggestions, but I stare blankly at them, already in shutdown mode.

The boys are still playing guitar hero and I can hear their music, which doesn't help me think. I calculate the number of changes of clothes I will need, try to remember the weather forecast (cold), pull out my travel kit and check to see if I need any refills.

I travel less these days. The professional tenure track required me to attend three or four conferences a year, presenting at as many of them as I could. Now that my position isn't tenure track, I only go to one or two a year, depending on the locations and topics of the presentations.

So my packing skills are a bit rusty. At least I don't have to fly. A short car trip is much easier to contemplate. I begin tucking the essentials into my blue suitcase, determined not to overpack. Dress is casual, so sweatshirts and comfy pants, warm woolly socks, sneakers.

Sleeping bag, blanket and pillow. Check. I had realized earlier that I had tossed all the sleeping bags before we moved. They were old and tattered and worn. So I had gone to Walmart's to get a new one (very reasonably priced), and Drew began dreaming of camping this year. Good idea!

Suddenly the suitcase was full. Had I forgotten anything? My exhausted brain could barely think. I will have to check tomorrow. I think I have everything - power cord for my cell, blood pressure medicine, cash in case. OK. Then I rummaged back through the neat piles of clothes, recalculating. I always overplan, then talk myself out of the extra sweater, the "just in case" items.

12:32. Not bad. I have one small suitcase, a small carryon bag, and the sleeping bag. I can travel light (I laugh out loud at this, knowing that many people have had to leave home and loved ones with much, much less). I bundle everything together in the corner of the room and slip between the sheets with a sigh. Ready.

I hope I have more time and energy than that to prepare for my final journey! Guarantee I will pack much lighter for that one. Maybe I should make sure I take care of things right along so I don't get caught with a midnight task. Maybe.