I admit it. I keep saying that "It's Just Stuff" and really it doesn't matter if it all arrives in shards and smithereens, there's nothing we can't live without or replace, blah blah blah. I kept saying before we left, "We have money, tickets, passports, and each other. Everything else is just details." It was a good little mantra.
The real challenge to me in keeping up this Zen and The Art of International Transfers mentality will be the arrival of our air shipment, which contains my birthday present, my only, my Precious...the laptop.
The computer I'm using now is my husband's telecommuting machine. For my birthday, my husband got me a lovely lovely new laptop of my very very own, which I hope will make it easier for me to keep up with the blogging. But we could only carry one computer onto the plane with us, and his gets priority. (Our other carryons were the diaper bag and the cat. My husband would have argued that the cat could get bumped, but I wasn't going for it.)
Anyway, I've been hoping that our air freight would be here by now. My fear is that it won't arrive by Wednesday. We're coming up on a holiday weekend here, and island time being what it is, as of Thursday the whole place is going to be shut down. Think SuperBowl Sunday, or the Stanley Cup perhaps, or the NCAA Final Four. Nothing is going to get accomplished after Wednesday at noon, I'm quite sure. And that means one more week before we get the baby's crib, her wading pool, a few more changes of clothes, and oh yesssss my precious...
Sunday, July 30, 2006
It is said that many of us, no matter how far into adulthood we get, continue to have those dreams where you're back at school and you can't find any of your classrooms, or you have a test but don't remember going to any classes or reading any of the material, or you can't find your locker and you're late to class, or variations on that theme.
There is also "The Actor's Nightmare" where you're supposed to go on stage in one minute but you don't remember any of your lines, can't recall having been at any rehearsals, or don't even know what play you're supposed to be in. (Brilliantly rendered in a one-act version, btw, by Christopher Durang. I did that one in high school. Ben Lang may never forgive me for actually taking his pants away during a dress rehearsal in class...)
As for me, being in the travel industry, I get the "I have to be at the airport in 30 minutes and the car is here and I haven't packed and I don't know where my passport and tickets are..." variation on the anxiety dreams. If you have ever seen Gone With The Wind, and recall Prissy's "packing" before they evacuate Atlanta, well, you get the idea. That's the one that usually has me waking up in a cold sweat.
Here's the thing: usually, before I start a new job, I get bombarded with these types of dreams -- especially when a move is involved (ohmigawsh, the packers are here and I haven't a clue what's supposed to go where!) This time around, though, almost no anxiety dreams.
The last major outbound international move was four years ago, when hubby and I left North America for Baltic Europe. I was married less than a year. My grandmother, to whom I was very close, had just died after a lengthy and agonizing struggle with Alzheimers. My cat had just had a cancer scare. I was going to a job with unprecedented levels of responsibility for me. My mental state at the time was such that I would have aspired to catatonia. My dear brother, who lived nearby and was between jobs at the time, came over to keep me calm while the movers went about their business. He considered feeding me Xanax and Valium cocktails washed down with vodka tonics. Seriously, I was pretty close to a nervous breakdown.
This time around, while upsetting, was much much better. No "Prissy-packing" panic dreams. No pharmacists on speed-dial, no nail-biting/wailing/gnashing teeth, no family restraining me from jumping off the roof. Even my boss told me on my last day in the office, "You are remarkably calm." Honestly, I couldn't have told him whether it was because I have matured over the last four years, or whether I was just so deeply in denial that nothing registered.
We got to our new island home six days ago. Since then, I've had one school dream: I was walking around my old high school, trying to find my locker, and realized that I didn't remember the combination. Then I found it and the door was unlocked and there was nothing in there anyway. Last night in my dreams, I was working a production of Les Miserables. We'd been working hard, it was opening night, and somehow we realized that even though we'd been rehearsing multiple roles, we actually hadn't cast someone in one of the major parts. So I stepped up to fill in. I knew I wasn't the best singer, and I didn't have all of the lines down solidly, but the show must go on and this was the best I could do and they could all just deal with it. And I got up there, played the part, and didn't care whether I made an ass of myself or not, I was having fun and no one threw any tomatoes.
So, am I actually getting better at this business, or am I -- dare I say it -- growing up? Or have I just gotten to the point where other people's definitions of performance and accomplishment are not that important to me?
Maybe that's the definition of being grown-up?
There is also "The Actor's Nightmare" where you're supposed to go on stage in one minute but you don't remember any of your lines, can't recall having been at any rehearsals, or don't even know what play you're supposed to be in. (Brilliantly rendered in a one-act version, btw, by Christopher Durang. I did that one in high school. Ben Lang may never forgive me for actually taking his pants away during a dress rehearsal in class...)
As for me, being in the travel industry, I get the "I have to be at the airport in 30 minutes and the car is here and I haven't packed and I don't know where my passport and tickets are..." variation on the anxiety dreams. If you have ever seen Gone With The Wind, and recall Prissy's "packing" before they evacuate Atlanta, well, you get the idea. That's the one that usually has me waking up in a cold sweat.
Here's the thing: usually, before I start a new job, I get bombarded with these types of dreams -- especially when a move is involved (ohmigawsh, the packers are here and I haven't a clue what's supposed to go where!) This time around, though, almost no anxiety dreams.
The last major outbound international move was four years ago, when hubby and I left North America for Baltic Europe. I was married less than a year. My grandmother, to whom I was very close, had just died after a lengthy and agonizing struggle with Alzheimers. My cat had just had a cancer scare. I was going to a job with unprecedented levels of responsibility for me. My mental state at the time was such that I would have aspired to catatonia. My dear brother, who lived nearby and was between jobs at the time, came over to keep me calm while the movers went about their business. He considered feeding me Xanax and Valium cocktails washed down with vodka tonics. Seriously, I was pretty close to a nervous breakdown.
This time around, while upsetting, was much much better. No "Prissy-packing" panic dreams. No pharmacists on speed-dial, no nail-biting/wailing/gnashing teeth, no family restraining me from jumping off the roof. Even my boss told me on my last day in the office, "You are remarkably calm." Honestly, I couldn't have told him whether it was because I have matured over the last four years, or whether I was just so deeply in denial that nothing registered.
We got to our new island home six days ago. Since then, I've had one school dream: I was walking around my old high school, trying to find my locker, and realized that I didn't remember the combination. Then I found it and the door was unlocked and there was nothing in there anyway. Last night in my dreams, I was working a production of Les Miserables. We'd been working hard, it was opening night, and somehow we realized that even though we'd been rehearsing multiple roles, we actually hadn't cast someone in one of the major parts. So I stepped up to fill in. I knew I wasn't the best singer, and I didn't have all of the lines down solidly, but the show must go on and this was the best I could do and they could all just deal with it. And I got up there, played the part, and didn't care whether I made an ass of myself or not, I was having fun and no one threw any tomatoes.
So, am I actually getting better at this business, or am I -- dare I say it -- growing up? Or have I just gotten to the point where other people's definitions of performance and accomplishment are not that important to me?
Maybe that's the definition of being grown-up?
Did I say a few days?
Okay, yeah, so I did. Heh. After getting back from my college reunion (which was lots of fun despite lots of rain), I realized that I had six weeks left to prepare for my next international move. I've done international moves before. I've done international moves with a cat before. I've done an international move pregnant before. But doing all of the above with a toddler? Oh, new levels of excitement.
The funny thing is, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Okay, granted, we had some of the usual hoopla about what goes into storage and what comes with us and what do we ship as air freight and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo on. And the fact that I came down with a respiratory bug for two weeks didn't help. All that time I would have spent playing Hogwarts Sorting Hat and running down to Goodwill with carloads of stuff I instead spent horking up lungbunnies and sounding like Lauren Bacall on helium.
So we didn't prep for this move with much detail. And the movers, although they appeared to be reasonable people, left empty Gatorade bottles all over the house and left the hot water tap in the bathroom running overnight (guess who's getting that last utility bill...?) But in the end, it's all just stuff and there's very little that we can't live without and couldn't replace. We got to our new island home in one piece; that's all that matters.
Okay, yeah, so I did. Heh. After getting back from my college reunion (which was lots of fun despite lots of rain), I realized that I had six weeks left to prepare for my next international move. I've done international moves before. I've done international moves with a cat before. I've done an international move pregnant before. But doing all of the above with a toddler? Oh, new levels of excitement.
The funny thing is, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. Okay, granted, we had some of the usual hoopla about what goes into storage and what comes with us and what do we ship as air freight and so on and so on and scooby dooby doo on. And the fact that I came down with a respiratory bug for two weeks didn't help. All that time I would have spent playing Hogwarts Sorting Hat and running down to Goodwill with carloads of stuff I instead spent horking up lungbunnies and sounding like Lauren Bacall on helium.
So we didn't prep for this move with much detail. And the movers, although they appeared to be reasonable people, left empty Gatorade bottles all over the house and left the hot water tap in the bathroom running overnight (guess who's getting that last utility bill...?) But in the end, it's all just stuff and there's very little that we can't live without and couldn't replace. We got to our new island home in one piece; that's all that matters.
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