I have one suitcase filled, with shoes (cute shoes, whimsical shoes, nonsensical shoes, NOT sturdy, tough winter shoes, yeay!), accessories, lingerie, and odds and ends. It weighs at exactly 50lbs. I have two more to go. I have piles of clothes on the floor, I am trying to pack only things that are fairly unique, or that I adore, and leave the basics (cotton undies, tank tops, t shirts and gym stuff) for a big shop at Target soon after arrival. No need to haul stuff over I can easily get there.
Still, this is HARD. This packing and leaving and thinking and organizing, it's tough. I can't wrap my head around the fact that my time as a resident in Europe is effectively over. That I won't be able to pop over to say, Italy, in a 2 1/2 hour flight.
We went to Italy for Christmas, from the 23rd to the 30th, and hit Rome and Pompeii, a bit of a dream trip for us both. OF COURSE the second I got to Pompeii (after 3 days in Rome) I got sick sick sick, sicker than I have been in yonks. I haven't been sick in over a year, and I have an entire ARSENAL of good strong American cold meds in a big basket here in Oslo. It's been sitting there waiting for one of us to get sick. So, when do I get sick? When I am on vacation, without my meds, in a place where apparently the strongest thing you can get is a cough syrup that tasted like cinnamon and merely massaged the cough around and stroked its neck. As the cold progressed the hotel clerk took pity on me and wrote something in Italian down for me to give the pharmacist, who finally gave me something laced with pseudoephedrin, and that started to help a bit. (I think the note said "This lady is disgusting, please make her stop snotting, sneezing and snorting all over my nice clean hotel.")
Anyhow with the help of the drugs and a forest's worth of tissues, we saw Pompeii and it was amazing, even if I was kind of zombie-like for parts of it. (It made me oddly pliant, something Rich is not used to, and I just followed him around wherever he want. I didn't have the energy to look at maps or argue, and I think it freaked him out a bit, having me just gamely follow everywhere. Thanks, honey, for taking the lead of your drug-addled wife.) I like to think I have contributed to its ongoing preservation by the addition of lashing of my snot, sneezed all over the buildings, guaranteed to hold them together for another 1000 years or so. (I will post pics from the trip later, promise.) (Not snot laden ones, pretty ones.)
The cold hung on through New Year's Eve, including fever, and then, like the inconvenient little shithead it was, fucked off on Jan 1, with nary a recovery period needed. Woke up, felt fine. Done, dusted. No excuse not to pack, I guess.
So I keep thinking that I should pack THIS dress or THIS jacket or THAT skirt. Do I need a business suit? (My business suit is too big now. Maybe I will buy a really sharp one when I get to Houston. Because, hello, meet the only person in history who has ever LOST weight on a trip to Italy over Christmas. I should have put on double weight, it being Italy AND Christmas, but no, the cold took care of the weight gain and I actually lost 2 lbs. I actually am kind of scrawny now and don't really like it, it shows in my face.) But I will be back end of February, so I can grab some more stuff then, and am trying to refrain from bring summer stuff this go round, though I know that I will need it by March in Texas. (Worrisome: the weather in Pompeii was FABULOUS and sunny, and I was rather warm at 60 degrees, so how the HELL am I going to get used to Texas heat again? I am going to die.)
Fuck, this time next week I will be in Houston, having already started in the new job. IwillnotfreakIwillnotfreakIwillnotfreak.......
Don't forget to breathe.
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