How much planning can you do?

With two days to go before we leave, my stress levels are lower than they have been in months.  For weeks the large white board that I keep in my kitchen (yes, I know – but an engineer’s home décor has to include white boards) has listed task after task that needed to be completed before we left.  Now there are only three items left on it, all pretty small things, and I am confident that I have done all the planning, done all the preparation and am ready to go. I thought I’d be more stressed by now, but I think that as it becomes more real and concrete, the stress has gone away.

My planning for this trip has been extensive.  The planning has included not only the things I needed to do that were specifically related to the trip, but a lot of other things that needed to be taken care to keep this household running while I’m gone.  I am a planner by nature.  I LOVE planning things. I think that one of the reasons that I love traveling so much is that travel usually needs a lot of planning – at least the way I travel. I like to travel with schedules and itineraries and guidebooks and a daily plan of what to see and where to go.  I am known as the planner among my friends. I have one friend who waits until I plan all the summer camps for Katie and then picks many of the same camps for her daughter.  I have another friend with younger daughters who likes to pick my brain on activities and school so that she can use my experiences.  I LOVE this. I like being the planner, and I love that other people can use the work that I’ve put in.  So a big trip like this has been a lot of fun to plan, but also a big challenge. Where are we going to go, how are we going to get there, where are we going to stay, what are we going to see….

 And at the same time, I needed (that is wanted) to plan everything for the home front as well.  I know that Paul is perfectly capable of surviving without me, but still, I want to make it easy for him.  It’s the planner in me. Does he know how to pay the bills online?  Will he remember to get the cars inspected?  Can he go to the orthodontist to make the monthly payments on Katie’s braces? If not, will her braces be repossessed? Does he know where the vet is located? 

I know perfectly well that he CAN do all these things, but I feel the need to make sure.  Luckily he is patient with me.  Plus it turns out he didn’t know where the vet’s office is. I’ve even bought all the birthday cards for the next three months, got gift cards for my nieces and nephews and stamped and addressed all the envelopes.  He has a list of when all the birthdays are and just needs to drop them in the mailbox.  I think this says much more about me than about him, and he is probably ready for me to go ahead and leave.

And yet with my strong need to plan, I am not a worrier.  I do have some world class worriers in my family, but worring has never been part of my nature. 
 Jump off the jungle gym into a snow pile while wearing snowshoes – sounds great! Give it a try! Take my ten year old to India – no problem!  It’ll be fun!
Move to Europe for two months – why not?  
I am an external optimist and have a strong sense that everything will work out.  So now that I’ve put in the advance work, I am sure that the logistics I’ve laid out will be fine and that things will run as smoothly as possible. I’ve done what I can.

So does anything about this trip actually  worry me? 
Well….only all the unstructured time that I have put in.  When we travel through Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Italy our time in those locations is limited. I can plan activities and sightseeing to fill the few days we will be in each place. Our time there will be structured, like it normally is, both while traveling and at home.  But our time in Paris is wide open.  We have seven weeks in Paris and I’ve done NO planning for it.  Yes, I know that we want to see the Eiffel tower, the world class museums and the historical sites. But how many days can that fill?  I want us to have a relaxed schedule, to enjoy living in Paris and not be rushed. To buy our food at the market, and to picnic in the park.  But at the same time this unstructured time terrifies me.  Will we end up just staring at each other with nothing to do?

What does a planner do when you deliberately chose NOT to plan???

Well, for now at least I can check off the three remaining tasks on my white board:  Wash the dog, trim all the Guinea Pig's nails and finish the laundry.