The never ending packing

In a hurry I am picking up some bulky clothes from the ground. I squeeze them into various travel bags. Hectic I grab more stuff but it seems all in vain. The piles keep growing. Undefined stuff – some for myself, some for the rest of my family. It is all scattered around me. In every direction. My heart beats hard. I am panicking. We have to catch a bus or a train or a taxi, to who knows where. Mad I look around me. The bags are bulging, nothing fits anymore. The clock is ticking. My heart is racing. But I am loosing out to the ever growing piles of things to pack …
I wake up covered in sweat. It is dark. I am laying in my bed. No bags, no piles of things… No hard deadline. Not yet.

I love traveling, I love the nomad’s lifestyle. But the packing nightmare is to me as to others is the “help-I-am naked-and-everybody-can-see-me” nightmare. But it does not stop me from packing once again:-)

This time a few things are different, that make it more relaxed. We do not need to take our bicycles. We plan to get some E-bikes in Costa Rica, necessary due to our remote village. We do not need to take a tent, sleeping bags or cooking gear, as we will move into a real house this time. We do not need to sell our entire furniture and pack the entire household into boxes, as we will come back into our home in Freiburg after half a year.

“It is so light, the bags are not even full yet!”, rejoiced Amiram at our first test packing during Christmas break. “And we don’t have to pull everything on our bikes!” And he quickly added a few more “nice to haves” to the dangerously growing mounds of stuff to pack. There they are, the piles of things to pack…. spread out in our home-office room with the beautiful view to the park.

“Where do we stand with our Costa Rica project plan?”, Amiram peeks over my shoulder, while I sit down at the laptop.
“I have updated everything in our list, it is on the server”, I respond. He rolls his eyes. Probably to-do lists feature in his top 3 nightmares …

I mention a few high level items:
“Vaccinations: done.
Travel bookings: almost done. Only the return will be more complicated, but also far more environmentally friendly.
Accomodation bookings: done
Job arrangements: done.
Schooling arrangements: almost done here and there.
Last IT backup: “Almost there” says Amiram
Cleaning the house: ongoing.
Last goodbuys for children and parents: ongoing …”

Everybody who has planned and packed for a similar trip, knows that this is overly simplified and that the devils (!) are in the detail. And it can be really nerve-racking and terrorising. We have been there before. There are only 2 days left before the hard deadline. We are well on track this time. We will see about the last days’ frenzy though …