Nothing puts me in the odd space of dealing with serious stress while simultaneously being in my “zone” like packing for a trip. All of my controlling/stress/freak out tendencies are activated. On the one hand, this makes me anxious, irritable and edgily unhappy. On the other hand, it turns me into an impressive specimen of organization and efficiency. I am good at packing and organizing for travel. It’s a skill and a strength of mine. I’m also “good” at being a grumpy stress case.

We are currently packing to go to the beach. And, although it keeps trying to sneak up on me, I’ve managed to not yet turn into a super grump.

There are a few things keeping me under control. First, I keep reminding myself that no “thing” is more important than the quality of our experience. There is nothing that I could remember or forget that is going to make as much of an impact on our enjoyment of our trip than me managing to maintain a good attitude. As long as I get both kids safely in the car, everything else is less than vital. Secondly, I can absolutely guarantee that even an astonishing level of stress and effort won’t prevent me from either forgetting, or failing to think of, something important for our trip. (Which is ok, because I can buy almost anything I need at the beach anyway. We’re going to Delaware, not Outer Mongolia.)

Add to that the fact that my mom is taking care of a lot of the details of the trip (towels, sheets, etc) AND the fact that this trip doesn’t require passports, Customs, or a 10 hour trans-Atlantic flight, and I’m doing just fine this evening.

We’ll see, though. We still have 12 hours before we have to leave. It could still happen. (But I’m hoping it doesn’t.)