There’s a reason that pride is considered a sin and that it
“goeth before a fall” – every single thing that I overtly or invertly (coinage
alert) brag about inevitably kicks me in the ass. Here’s my latest sense of that:
I have always prided myself on not being “one of those
people” who a) takes a trip without knowing who they’re going to see or what
they’re going to do or b) stays up all night packing and working and arrives
exhausted. The latter prohibition may
surprise some of you. I am, and have
been, quite clearly a chronically over-booked person. But I am also an obsessive planner. So my planning obsession generally trumps
overtakes my activity addiction and causes me to cut bait a day or two before a
trip and pack everything in advance.
Not, I hasten to add, always with clarity, focus, ease and grace. Often there is chaos in the wake of my
packing but I postpone facing that until my return.
Weeks before the trip (no, probably months) we start
thinking about what we’re going to do, sending out email inquiries to friends
in that town to see if they’ll be around, poking around on the internet to see
what’s happening, what to get tickets for, what to line up. By the time we arrive we have a full dance
card and program of activities—dinners, lunches, shows. And it’s great and we enjoy it all.
Unfortunately, I have passed on the planning gene to our 20-year-old
daughter and it seems to be, depending on the setting, one of her greatest
blessings and curses. “Here’s the thing,
Bob,” she calls me Bob (it’s a story for a different post), “No one else my age
plans anything. I am a freak for
planning!” She leaves the obvious unstated, that I too am something of a freak
even in my generation. Yet, she
sometimes confesses, “It actually gives me a lot of ability to lead with my
friends and at work. It’s like I can do
this weird thing that practically no one else can do.” (Bob, I can hear her saying now, I totally
never said that. Why are you putting
that in your blog? Please leave me out
of your weird blog)
So that’s the context in which you find me--dusting off my
clothes and spreading Arnica on my metaphorical bruises from a fall last night:
I got less than 4 hours of sleep because I stayed up working and doing last
minute packing. And, it gets worse—we are
arriving today for 2 days in a city in which we lived in for 9 years, filled
with old friends, with no plans and no one to see.
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Sigh. I guess I’m one
of those people…
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