T minus two weeks

The calendar has officially turned to October and it's two weeks, exactly, until Allison and I leave for Thailand. On Sunday, October 16, we take a bus to Toronto, then on Monday the 17th we fly out of Pearson airport.

As recently as two days ago—Friday, September 30—I was still able to mentally conceive of the trip as being "a ways off," at some vague point in the future.

"Next month," I could say, as if October would never actually come.

Last week I was musing about whether I was excited about this trip, and I insisted I wasn't, not exactly, as I labored to explain that I can really only be "excited" about things as they are actually happening.

Anxiety, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.

From now until moment I get through security at the airport, my anxiety will grow with each passing day, until I am curled up in a ball in a corner somewhere, babbling...

Ohgodohgodarewereallygoingtoflytothailandwithonewayticketsandhardlyanyplans
whythefuckwouldwedothat??!?!

Or something like that.

Nothing that extreme, I hope, at least not externally. I will appear to remain very composed. Mute, perhaps. But roiling on the inside.

Is this what people mean by "nervous excitement"? When considered in those terms, "anxiousness" doesn't seem quite right. It's more than simple dread. I want to go. It just seems like the departure date is approaching too rapidly—and yet not rapidly enough.

I'd like to leave tomorrow, if we could. But am I ready?

No: I still need to pack!

It is these details, of course, that are the source of my anxiety. What to bring, what not to bring. The possibility of forgetting something important. The fear of getting something wrong.

Better, instead, to focus on something funny, like where we might spend Christmas. Kuala Lumpur is an early front-runner, but we haven't planned that far ahead.

I'm happy to miss Halloween. And the presidential election. I usually don't mind Thanksgiving though. It's nice to be home for that. Last year, Allison and I camped at Joshua Tree and had our turkey dinner at the Sizzler in Twentynine Palms. This will be the first Christmas I haven't spent with my parents. That seems OK though; I have lived with them all year.

T minus two weeks.

It's undeniably fall now. Cool nights. Flannel shirts. Football on the weekends. It's comforting, in a way. Comfortable. Too comfortable.

I gotta get the fuck outta here.