While I’ve written before about the joy I find in traveling, I haven’t written about the creeping anxiety that looms larger and larger as I get close to departing on a trip.

My to-do list swells so much, it feels like it’s on steroids. I get fixated on things that don’t really need to happen and try to convince myself I can’t leave until I’ve cleaned my closet–even if I haven’t cleaned my closet in the last six months–or six years. Even when I’m aware of the pattern, the niggling will not let go. Here’s the messy closet I will NOT clean before I leave.

But that doesn’t mean, I won’t scour the nooks and crannies of my life for other household and administrative loose ends that would be better off tied. And it’s not just me. My partner, Shel, decided a couple of days ago that it would be good idea to put away all the herbs we hung to dry on the window frames months ago. (So far he’s only gotten through a quarter of them, LOL!)

The rationale is valid, if it didn’t up the ante on the anxiety arising from the pressure of getting all these things done on time. Because time, as any stress management course will tell you, is finite. And at some point, it will be gone. The plane will take off, and, providing all goes according to plan, you will be on it, regardless of what has and hasn’t gotten done. So I’m trying this time to simply laugh at some of these unnecessary inclinations and focus on the things I absolutely have to do to get ready for this trip, while at the same time trying to tame that rising since of dread in my chest.

A recent meditation tape suggested that I think of anxiety not as a monster but as a baby animal that needed love and reassurance. For some reason I envisioned a raccoon, its large eyes and black mask a prominent focal point of its tiny body. Even as the image first arose, I found myself wondering why I’d chosen a feral scavenger and if there was some metaphor about the mask. Not sure, though I think there might be something about the scavenger bit. Anxiety does feed on anything it can find, which may be why I keep adding things to my to-do list that I don’t really need to do. And “feral” makes sense, too, because you can only control anxiety so much.

But you can also let a feral animal go off and do its own thing. And that’s what I intend to do with this pre-trip anxiety: look out the window and wave to it, wishing it well on its scavenging journey. Then I will focus on what’s essential–and if there’s extra time, what’s realistic–to accomplish in the 48 hours I have left before I leave.

And once I’ve closed the door to my house for the final time and checked my bag for the super essentials–passport, wallet, phone, computer, chargers, glasses, etc.–I’ll remind myself that I’m not venturing off into thin air. Likely, if I have a problem with a lost or forgotten item, or something essential that needs to be done, there will be a way to address the issue. And then, I’ll appreciate myself for being resourceful and remind myself of some past travel mishaps that may have been frustrating at the time, but now make good laughable stories.

And I’ll watch as that little raccoon in the corners of my mind trots off and buries itself for a nice nap in that pile of brush I did manage to clear from my garden before we left–even if I didn’t nearly tackle all of it!

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