I am stir crazy. It’s not a sensation I have much experience with, since usually in the lead-up to travel I am crazy busy getting ready. I have this new lecture to prepare, that fairly new lecture to revise, that much-used one to review. I have a travel wardrobe to whittle down. I have travel arrangements to make or confirm. There’s not enough time in the day, and then— poof!—departure day is here.
Compare that to my present reality. I don’t actually know when I am leaving for British Columbia, since it depends on when I get my car title in the mail, which could be any time from today to a couple of weeks. I don’t have anything to do around my condo, because my role there is done. Nothing to do but wait for updates from my real estate agent. Another thing out of my hands.
I’ve done most of the things to shift my life in the needed direction. I’ve gotten myself set up for a mail service, and I’ve notified most of the people and institutions that actually send mail to me at this point (not many). There are things to do relating to getting myself and my car into Canada, but most are supposed to be done fairly close to the date I will show up at the border.
I have gotten my quarantine housing set up, and my first two places to live, which will get me to November, so nothing to do there. I’ve done all I can without being there to set up banking, vehicle registration, post office box and the like, which means I have done very little except a bit of basic research on things I can’t do right now.
There are a couple of things I could do today, but nothing so pressing it is likely to get me out of this chair. Plus, in keeping with my plan to isolate as much as possible the week before I leave, I am limiting my outside contacts to close to zero, in the hopes that I will be ready to go a week from now, at the end of July with a minimal chance of taking the virus with me on the road. There goes any chance to mask up and do something fun, or just anything nonessential, outside.
My big event today so far is doing a load of wash. Then in an hour I can start thinking about lunch. Then what? Well, I could put in some time on my current writing project, get in touch with a few friends, do a little exercise routine I have set up for myself. Yeah, but those all take effort, and the scariest, least familiar part about this is that i don’t have the drive to do anything. I am, sad to say, not even very good at taking naps.
I guess I just have to wait this out, and remind myself that I am 1) safe 2) loved, and 3) on the cusp of something very, very different from today. Even on a cranky, listless day, those are blessings not everyone has. Gratitude, I remind myself, with a heavy sigh.