Anxious for nothing?

The day before I leave...still have that queasy feeling, wondering if everything is going to get done, if I will pack the right things, if the bus to Heathrow will get stuck in traffic, if I will have left undone things I ought to have done...all those little things that betray my insecurities!

Travelling is strange. It feels somehow that as the distance increases between myself and my friends, the relationships are somehow going to be stretched thin. I think it is not just me who feels this - I'm experiencing that phenomenon of everyone suddenly wanting to see me before I go (even people whom I haven't spent any significant time with in over a year!), just at a time when I have less time to hang out with people. I know it is silly - that a relationship is not physical. And that I'll be in email contact. Perhaps there is also some unconscious fear that something will happen and we won't see one another again. So I'm feeling a kind of generalised queasiness at the moment, and eager to end it by getting on the plane, which will signal that I can release my paltry attempts to control the present and relax into the future.

Today I'm meeting the friendship angst head on by cooking Sunday lunch for some good friends. Craziness perhaps, given all I have to do, but it is a good way to see a number of people at once, so in the long run I hope it will save me time!

Talking to someone at work on Friday I realised that she and I both share a curious habit when we are about to travel. We decide at the last minute that there are certain jobs that we have put off for months or even years, that absolutely must be done before we leave. I wonder - do men indulge in this kind of silly behaviour too? I once decided, on the eve of a 9-hour drive to Toronto, where I was going to visit friends before flying to the UK for the summer, at 11:30pm no less, that I absolutely had to hang my bicycle from the rafters in the basement. I managed to knock some insulation into my eye, giving myself a corneal abrasion, which meant a midnight drive to emergency, driving home at 1am (very carefully) under the influence of mega-painkillers, and leaving a day later.

Is writing this blog one of those unnecessary last minute things? Probably...

I attach a picture of my half-packed suitcase - this one's for you, Andy, since you have taught me that nothing is too insignificant to take a photo of. Actually I think my suitcase is pretty boring, but I want to test how to do pictures, so when I have something interesting I'll know how to do it.

Okay...I think this is enough procrastinating for now!