I'm an Excellent Packer

I’m getting ready for a big trip. We leave in less than two days and I’ve been thinking about packing for months. I have made piles and lists. I have a notes app on my phone that I’ve opened and edited at least fifty times. I’ve run through every possible devastating scenario in my mind. I’ve printed out airport maps and checked that my Lyft app is fully loaded onto my phone. I’ve gathered and packed medications for every possible ailment. I’ve contemplated snacks and washed my favorite scarf to keep me warm on the plane. In the process of it all I’ve lost my glasses, adding one more thing to worry about in the thirty-six hours before I leave. 

We’re going on a lifetime adventure to the Galapagos Islands and, while I’m excited for the trip, I recognize that I’ve spent so much psychic energy preparing that I’m kind of exhausted even before zipping my suitcase. The joke in my family is that I love packing. For my birthday this year I got packing cubes, little soft suitcases that I can put in my big suitcase to keep me even more organized. The truth is, I’m not really organized at all. I’m just incredibly anxious. Every act of packing makes me feel a tiny bit more in control of an experience I have very little control of.

As I sit here writing this I am wondering if I should make coffee at 3 am before I call the Lyft or if I should wait until we get to the airport so I can wash the pot before we leave. Does my daughter’s TSA pre-check work or should we go to the airport extra early in case? If I pack cough syrup in little spice bottles will that be under the requisite 3 ounces to get through security? Holy crap! It doesn’t stop. I feel sorry for my traveling companions. I feel sorry for myself.

A therapist once told me that my brain thinks this way, in part as a coping strategy to a very chaotic childhood. I remember being in the car with my plastic grocery bag on my way to my dad’s house. He’d call to my sisters and me in the back seat, “Everyone got enough underpants?!” If we didn’t he’d stop at K-mart on the way and we’d grab some.

I am always prepared. For anything. For everything. I have two satellite bags in my everyday purse — one that has two kinds of lotion (hand and face), Advil, lip balm, bandaids, tweezers, dental floss, gum and hand sanitizer and another that has a pen, a pencil, a highlighter, a phone charger, old earphones, new earphones, ear plugs and post-it notes. I’m always ready. 

What would happen if I was unprepared? If I didn’t have a granola bar handy when I got hungry? If I had to use a thread from my shirt instead of floss to get the broccoli out of from between the molars on the upper left side of my mouth? What would happen if I was late to the airport? I really don’t know because it RARELY happens.

Once, when my daughter was four and we were visiting my mom in Chicago, she took us to O’Hare Airport and we got in terrible traffic. We ended up missing our flight and being stranded for hours. I remember leaving my daughter in the airport corridor with our luggage as I raced to the bathroom to pee, afraid the whole time that she’d be abducted or molested in the seven minutes I was gone. 

I also remember having ice cream with her at 10 am and again at noon. I remember sitting on top of our suitcases watching Dora the Explorer on her tiny DVD player. I remember her sense of adventure and acceptance. She wasn’t worried at all. As far as she was concerned, we were chillin’ in a giant room full of lots of people (and ice cream) and everything was fine.

I can’t prepare for everything. Can I really prepare for anything? No matter how many times I check my flight status, there’s no way to know if somehow ice will form on the wings in an unexpected cold snap. There’s no predicting if the pilot gets COVID or the Lyft driver gets a flat. I tell myself these things, but I still prepare. I’ll leave just a tiny bit earlier in case. I’ll pack a few extra pair of socks in case someone forgets their’s. There will always be a headlamp in my toiletries case if I need to read. 

Already things aren’t going as planned. I lost my glasses! But I have my old pair and I can use those. To get to our destination we’ll need to take three flights, multiple taxi rides, and a boat. There are so many possible ways things can go wrong, and they might. 

A few years ago I went to India. At the last minute, I gate checked my bag. After a grueling few days of travel, missing a connection in Dubai, finally arriving in Chennai, I learned that my suitcase was lost. On the way to my final destination I had the driver pull over to a shop I’d been to on my last trip. I bought a set of clothes and planned how I’d wash my bra and underpants while I slept that night. A friend gave me some disposable underwear, I brushed my teeth with my finger, and two days later my bag was found. The worst had happened and I had been okay.

As I prepare for this once in a lifetime trip I desperately want to change my narrative. I long to see the possibilities beyond the logistics, to chill out like my daughter did all those years ago. I know I can do it because I’ve done it before. I have a day and a half to figure this out, to embody the calmer me. Can I do it? I hope so. I’m really going to try.