Who doesn’t like to travel?
This girl!
I could spend all afternoon listing the reasons, but what it really comes down to is that I worry too much about sleeping. Will my sleep be interrupted? Will my back hurt when I wake up? Is there going to be hot water available so I can make tea in the morning? Will I snore? If I’m sitting up, is my head going to fall back and my mouth fall open and my tongue dry out and then maybe some flies might land on the edges of my lips and feed on the accumulated dried spit? When I don’t get proper sleep, my IBS is more likely to act up and what follows is a day or two of pain and other, uh, “health issues.” The medication I take for the symptoms gives me a headache and dehydrates me. The best way to avoid this is not to worry about it in the first place. Just relax, and sleep!
I also have a small issue with waking up. Any time I open my eyes and don’t hear an alarm clock, my body throws me into panic mode. I sit up and grope blindly for my glasses while at the same time trying to find the clock to see how late I am. My heart starts pounding and I am already reaching for work clothes by the time I realize that I’m not late or I don’t even have to work that day. At that point I am too worked up to go back to sleep so I start my day with high blood pressure and an unfounded feeling of guilt.
It’s time to get past all this. In March I’ll embark on a long-overdue trip across most of the US with my oldest friend. Who knows where I’ll be sleeping, and who cares? We’ll be free. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t wanted to drive cross-country with Sas.
I also learned a bit from my Lynyrd Skynyrd adventure with Trav. Namely, bring food and water. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Well, it seemed obvious to us that western Pennsylvania would have a store where you could buy food and water. I also learned that an airport is a safe, warm (or cool), dry place with clean bathrooms and restaurants and a great place to spend an afternoon.
Since this plan has only recently hatched, I have a lot of thinking and planning and, yes, worrying to do. The prospect of finally seeing the country with someone with whom I can always have a good time, even when having a bad time, is so thrilling to me that I’ll probably be losing sleep over it for the next six weeks.
