We have a lot of work to do. In the next ten days, we have to vacate our apartment and put everything we want to keep into storage. We have to decide what to bring on our trip. We have to do something with all the food in our kitchen – eat it or give it away or throw it in the garbage. We have to say goodbye to friends and family. We have to give away unwanted items.
To get through the challenge of these ten days, it helps to remember our positive experience last summer. We felt very free without all these extra belongings to be responsible for. We also spent time in so many wonderful places and saw so much beauty.
Sometimes now I am afraid. I wake up in the morning afraid that I am jumping off a cliff and will fall into nothingness. Occasionally, I question my sanity.
I have to remind myself that I may be jumping, but there will be somewhere to land. Even if we are not home, we will always be somewhere. I think when people imagine being on a trip for a long time, they think they won’t feel grounded or safe without their home. But there will always be places where we can feel the sand under our feet or touch the blades of grass with our hands or close our eyes and hear the birds chirping in the trees.
Our reward, once we are all packed and ready to go, will be that we will be more present in these moments than we are in our daily, comfortable lives at home.