(Yestermorning post) T Minus 2 Days

I'm hiding. DH's impending departure doesn't feel real yet. I haven't felt a huge stone drop into my stomach or gotten so wired that I can't eat. Not yet.

DH mentions his nervousness occasionally (mostly when asked), but it seems like he's passed a number of physical milestones in getting ready for departure. Quitting his day job was one move towards making it real. Getting his ship date was another. Clearing the decks of commissions was likely a big one. On the other hands, I haven't taken big steps. Except for how I relate to DH and talk to him, not much has changed for me in the past weeks. He's jumping down cliffs, I'm walking down a gentle slope to the ocean. I wonder if I'll feel a big change before he's gone.


That;s not to say that the impending changes aren't on my mind. To lampshade what I believe is the most annoying habit I've picked up in the past couple weeks, it's been hyper-vigilance when it comes to *things*, mainly consumables. That is to say, when DH writes out a grocery list for my mom, I look over his shoulder and say, "Do we really need more XYZ, we're leaving soon and my parent's don't eat it." Or I try to tweak our orders at restaurants so there won't be leftovers (hardly ever works).

Thankfully, DH doesn't act annoyed when I bug him about managing stuff with departing in mind. I don't just nudge him about food, it's an affliction that definitely bleeds over into other things. Once I actually asked him, "Do you really need to buy new razors? You're leaving in less than a week..."

Note: I only did this because:
a) I'm very frugal and we're living on savings and
b) I'm always thinking about what I have to pack away

(Epilogue: I let him buy the razors. He does need them and I use them for shaving my legs, so can make use of the new ones.)

I don't think that's an extreme example, either. Consider our clothing situation: He won't take anything with him, and I can only take a portion of mine with me. I feel very strange carrying dirty laundry when I travel (at least on an outbound trip), and equally strange leaving dirty clothes in storage. Add this to my attempts to pack with any degree of finality more than 3 days before my trip, and I'm more neurotically "clothes conscious" than I've ever been in my life. And it has nothing to do with actually wearing clothes.

Deep down, I believe this is much ado about nothing. Of course there will be a load of laundry done on the last day, and of course all the packing and organizing will work out satisfactorily without me pulling an all-nighter. I expect that a lot of it is stress and energy directed along a tangent. As long as I'm not able to let go of things and relax, it's probably healthier this way, rather than channeling it towards other people and creating tension there.

But, really, relaxing would be the best thing to do.