Preparing

As of this post today, Andy and I are officially 14 days away from our Norway Trip.  That means, I already have a checklist of everything I want to make sure I have in our carry-on bag, I have all of our vouchers printed off for hotels and other tickets, and I have certainly obsessed about where we will be on which day and when we'll need to be ready, etc.   The latest and greatest in our excitement was buying tickets for La Cenerentola or as I've been referring to it, Cinderella by Rossini.

And you probably at least know Rossini from "Rabbit of Seville."

There was a lot of flailing involved in that purchase, mostly from me, actually, and we did have to purchase from a site that was entirely in Norwegian.  It was oddly exciting to recognize words like "payment" and "continue" without having to pull up a translator.

So here it is.  So close to our goal and our adventure.  And there is a rolling tumult of emotions in my gut.  We promised each other that our fifth anniversary was going to be something big after we survived those first couple of years of marriage, with four surgeries, countless doctor's appointments, and lots of arguing with insurance, not to mention all of the emotional heartache that goes along with it.  We damn-well made it happen.  This involved paying off a fair bit of debt, saving, learning basic Norwegian, but the hardest preparation personally was getting to a better state of health, involving slow, steady healing, a new diet, and finding an exercise routine I could tolerate.  It really did take five years to put this all together.

This trip is symbolic, a stick-it-to-the-man where "the-man" in this case is our situation revolving around my health history.  It is an affirmation of our perseverance as a couple and as individuals (with no small thanks to our AMAZING support system).  This means there's a little bit of pressure to be absolutely amazing, and I've been reminding myself to not build my expectations too high and go along with the adventure instead.  

There are also decisions that we've told ourselves "We'll worry about that after the Norway Trip" that will be waiting for us when we get back.  

There's also that goal-gap, the "I've just finished an amazing book and don't know what to do with my life" kind of depression.  We've been working toward it for so long, it's time to find out what our new dream is.

And most significantly, I'm also terrified that my body is going to fall apart through the travel.  How crushing would it be to finally make it there and then be unable to experience any of it because I have to sequester myself away for rest at every opportunity?  My body is absurdly unpredictable for someone my age, despite all the ways I've learned how to listen to it.  And that stress compounds on itself, meaning that I'm likely to pull out of normal activities for the next couple of weeks, trying to adjust for that best I can.

So I'm ecstatic.  I'm burying myself in the details to cover some of those other anxieties.  And sometimes, that means I have to stop, acknowledge to myself that, yes, I am scared, which then seems to allow me to keep going anyway.  My excitement and my fear are there in equal parts, rolling in my stomach.  Thankfully, both feel at least a little better with some peppermint tea.

14 days.