My Days and Nights Are Full

My days and nights  are filled with thinking about the Open House, organizing the delivery of work, writing about the weekend.   And getting my own work done.  I’m also preoccupied with the preparations for my trip to India.  Every day there’s something else to do, someone else to call or email.

I need to get a Typhoid Vaccination with a few others for my trip.  To get a Typhoid vaccination I have to go to the County Health Center, have an appointment with Dr Leach ( I squirmed at his being a man and his name).  “An hour”! I exclaimed to the very nice woman on the phone setting up my appointment.  How could  it take an hour for him to give me a vaccination.

It turns out he’ll go through my  trip Itinerary and tell me what the  specific health risks are  depending on where I’m going.  He’ll give me prescriptions for antibiotics to bring with me  in case I get sick.   Then send me off to the nurse down the hall for my typhoid shot.

I haven’t been to a doctor in such a long time I had to call my High School to get my childhood vaccination records  which Dr Leach needs.  Even on the answering machine, the Long Island accent was thick.  Did I used to talk like that?  I’ve been told  it still comes through sometimes when I’m excited or pissed off.

I haven’t been back to my High School since I graduated thirty four years ago.  And the only reason I remember the year I graduated  is because my friend Cindy  had the blue and white tassel with the cheap plastic, gold colored “82” on it, from her cap,  hanging from her rear view mirror.   When I think of her I see the tassel.

But, even though I’m so removed from the place I grew up,  when I called the school,  I saw  the rotary phone in the main office. The not so friendly secretary, who was all business.

I think it’s kind of amazing that they still had my vaccination records.  And  that they sent them to me within a few days.

Then, last night I woke up and started to spin awful stories in my head  about  spending over six hours in Dubai Airport from 7pm to 2am on a layover.   I’ve heard the airport is like a giant mall.  You can even buy a car there.  Still, when I wake up in the night, my mind often goes to dark places.

But Jon was awake too, so instead of continuing my stories, we looked at videos on his ipad of the Dubai Airport.  It was a fear of the unknown.  The stories in my head were soon replaced by the images on Jon’s Ipad and suddenly I was tired again.  Able to go back to sleep.

Little by little  it all gets done.  There’s always something else to think about, something else to worry about.   But not having to think about the money anymore,  not only makes the trip possible, but so much easier.   ( Thank you again to everyone who donated to my trip).

Ultimately,  for me, the excitement of everything that’s going on overshadows the concerns.  There’s so much I can’t  know until I actually experience it.  And  that’s what a trip like this is so much about.  Seeing, doing and learning things so out of my life experience I can’t even imagine them.