Pre-travel Jitters

We leave in less than 24 hours. The anxiety is building, but especially with Kelli. Kelli, whether she will admit it or not, does not deal well with stress. She has resorted to writing checklists over and over- like the recitation of hail marys. I expect her to reach enlightenment soon as much as she meditates over addresses and contact numbers of where we will be staying. I allow her to indulge in this obsessive compulsiveness because she needs to focus on something or her nerves make her nauseated. Checklists are not as messy. It will all be better once we finally get our rears in those plane seats.

As departure time draws near I think my mother has begun to get anxious as well. Every now and then I catch her staring at me. She doesn't say anything, but there are moments when I think she is taking snapshots of me in her mind and labeling them "The Lasts". I can hear her thinking "The last time I saw Lauren eating cereal" or "The last time I saw Lauren being lazy watching T.V.". My last day I caught her taking an actual picture of me at 6:30AM while I was sleeping. I woke up to the sound of a disposable camera winding up, quick flash, and then she sped out of my room like a sneaky sprite. Maybe she just took the picture to drive me crazy and not as some sort of last remembrance memento.

My dad took Kelli and I on a final pick-up run. We have everything. The trip really was extraneuos. After making several laps around the nearest Wal-Mart, all we could come up with a possible use for was Imodium AD, bandanas and pepper spray. Our aggreement on the need for pepper spray put second thoughts in my head about this trip all together. I immediately started imagining all the scenarios in which I could use pepper spray and examined the fastest ways I could get to it as if I was going to partake in an old western gun draw.

Tick tock. Tick tock. I just want to be there already.