Pre-departure anxieties

Two days from now, I'll be on my way, trekking across the world, on my way home.

Now, still at home, I'm packing my suitcase, while my cat plays hide and seek with all the bags, gifts and suitcases that are lying around, sprawled all over the floor. The house looks like a mess, my mind is a confused mess...

I seem to always feel this way the day or so before departing. Most of the time, I more or less know what to pack, when I'll be back, and what to expect. But this time, somehow the trip is filled with so many uncertainties. Not that we ever know or can know what will happen in our lives... but the uncertainty of what awaits me back home frightens me. Frightens me in a way that I cannot explain. All I can say is that I'm restless, I feel disturbed and feel like I'm leaving here with so many things still undone, so many things still unsaid, so many things still unsettled and unresolved...

It's like I'm being uprooted and transplanted again. And thinking of the great distances, the separation, the difference in time zones already makes me feel anxious and nauseous... I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling now, I really don't...

Spent an hour or so writing cards to close friends, wishing them all the best for the new year, but at the same time, expressing my heart-felt gratitude for their support and presence in my life. Once or twice, as I wrote the cards, I was moved close to tears... the last couple of weeks have been a rough ride, but throughout my friends, near and far, have been there to listen, to offer a shoulder to rest on, and I feel my words cannot convey the deep, deep gratitude I feel towards them.

One of the cards I wrote is addressed to myself. It may sound so bizarre, so utterly insane to be writing to myself. But it's not to my self now, but to a future self. Who knows what the next few weeks, months will bring... who knows what emotional and physical frame of mind I will be when I come back to this house, and walk through those doors again... In a way, the card to (future) myself serves to remind me (in the future), that however much time has elapsed, whatever happens to me or to loved and dear ones in my life, I am still here, I am still alive.

And that should be a source of strength and support to myself, even through the most turbulent and uncertain times.