Shipping News

I’ve written about it before and I thought I was done with it, but yesterday I saw it was back.  My Shipping Fears.

I’ve had the first printing of Jon’s Rose in the Mist photos since last week and I’m just mailing them out tomorrow.  Yes, I’ve been waiting for payments  and for the second printing, but the real reason it took me so long to get to its is because I was anxious about shipping them. I’ve never shipped un-matted prints before  and I wanted to do it right.  Unfortunately, for me, this particular anxiety doesn’t get me moving, it makes me procrastinate.

So instead of getting the prints and figuring out what I needed to do to safely get them where they’re going, I put them aside and told myself I’d get to Staples and find the right envelopes.   Once I got to  Staples, I was still unsure, so I bought envelopes I thought might work, then put them aside.  A couple of days later I finally tried to send  a print off and realized I needed foamcore to keep the package stiff.  By now it’s the weekend and Image Loft, where I get the foam core, is closed till Monday. On Monday I got the foam core and realized the envelopes I got from Staples weren’t  big enough.  So I called ULine, where I get most of my shipping supplies, and asked them what is best to use.  As always, they told me what I needed and shipped it the next day.  By now it’s a week later.

So today I have everything I need to ship the prints and I’m standing at my desk, looking at the prints in their  plastic sleeves with foam core backing  and the tissue paper I’ve decided to wrap them in for extra protection and the  gusseted, self-seal, stay flat envelopes and I’m still looking at it all afraid to put the first print in the envelope.  So, I look at it all some more and wonder what keeps me from placing the print in the envelope and sealing it and sticking the address label on it.

And I think, once I start, that’s it.  There’s no going back.  If it’s wrong, if the photos get damaged in the mail, if I type the  address wrong, if my filing system fails,  it’s all my fault.  I am 100% responsible.

But I guess there’s a part of me that trusts me, because I find myself packing the first print.  When I get to the second one,  I start starring again,  then tell myself to just do this  one, and not think about the other 25.   I do the second one.  And then, like magic  I don’t even think about it anymore and find myself wrapping prints and printing labels and sealing the self stick envelope like I’ve been doing this my whole life.  I don’t even remember that I was anxious  and I’m listening to  new Bonnie Raitt  on my ipad, and soon I have a  box neatly  filled with Rose in the Mist prints ready to be shipped.

Looking at  all the neatly stacked envelopes, the paypal receipts in one pile and the checks in another, I’m impressed.  It really looks like I know what I’m doing.  And I guess I do.  It’s just that sometimes, I don’t know it.