packing in a fury

I head out in a few days, and someone caught me off guard by commenting, "Boy, you're awful calm." Liz says I'm always calm. Really? Am I?

In this modern day and age, you can't really just drop everything and disappear into the wild unknown. I spent most of the morning figuring out what to do with my car insurance, paychecks, mail, credit card bills, health insurance, bank, and there's probably some other things I've forgotten. Everyone was nice on the phone, and wished me good luck when I explained my situation. It wasn't a bit frustrating, but I'm just thinking how tied I am with all these accounts everywhere. And this is the simplest I can make it!

I can put on boots and a pack and hike, not a problem or a second thought. But two things that I'm feeling very inexperienced about: a) following a data book without maps, and b) coordinating this whole mail-drop/resupply business. With the latter, I've got the feeling I'm making this too complicated, like I did with classroom management at first, just because I didn't know. Actually, a lot of my feelings right now are similar to the feelings I had when I began my first year of teaching.... and just saying so is making my stomach tighten. I do my best to think it through in my head, but I really don't have anything to go on. Realizing that, I prepare myself to wing it, instead of dwelling on it.

Or maybe my stomach feels tight because I'm long overdue for lunch. Let's see what I can dig up in Liz's kitchen. :-)