Who am I going to be?

1992 on the way to Iowa via Wyoming

I’m planning a trip to visit daughter Kendall in the Boston area and a good friend in Connecticut. I bought the tickets, made plans for cat sitting (thank you, daughter Erin), bought summer clothes and sandals. I have the various things to make packing easier, and am thinking about travel containers for lotions and potions and so on. But I’m having some anxiety - about masks and Covid and hotels and rental cars. 

And that’s not the me I used to be. When I was 35 and decided I wanted to go back to graduate school for a doctorate in English Education, I hired a truck and movers to fill it, gave away what didn’t fit, put my 2 small children in the back seat of my trusty Toyota, and drove halfway across the country to the University of Iowa. I had been there only once and just assumed housing and so on would work out. And it did, more or less. And then when I was 38 and fell in love with Randy, I did everything in reverse - traveling to California, moving the girls and I in with my brother while I looked for work. 

People were amazed by how much I was willing to risk, but I trusted in my own competence, my belief that I could do whatever was necessary. And now a simple 2-week trip, 2 nonstop flights is making me anxious. I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed in myself, but I’m a little bewildered. Am I going to feel like this forever? Will I return to the person I was? Something in between?