Vacation, schmacation...

Today I'm much better.

Yesterday, not so much.

A week from today, I'll be in Hungary.

I won't be back for 2 weeks.  Which means 14 days away from the cats.  2 Sundays away from church. 2 more away from my Tuesday weightlifting class. 1 Independence Day not celebrated in the US. 9 business days away from the office.  The longest vacation I've taken in 16 years.

Yesterday, as if I hadn't been thinking about it regularly for the last 3 months, it hit me that I had to figure out how to be gone.

I'm not very good at this. Most of the day I sat at my desk, staring at a stack of account folders, contemplating the details therein that should be communicated to my coworkers. I thought about the shopping I should do after work to get a get a present for my hosts and the walking shoes and the comfortable traveling skirt I've always wanted..  I thought about the cat-sitting schedule only marginally done.  I thought about the party I -- yes, why not -- thought would be a fine idea to host on Saturday night and the attendant 58-item grocery-and-liquor list just waiting for my attention.  I realized I don't even know how to say "hello" in Hungarian. Or thank you.

It was a lot of thinking.  No doing.  Another instant of the sheer number of details rendering me powerless to deal with even one of them.

Oy.

My unlikely savior was Doug, the IT dude. By 4 p.m., requiring roasted almonds from the lobby snack bar in order to soldier on without a panic attack, I happened to encounter Doug in the down elevator.   When he asked, "how are you," I told him my exact level of anxiety about the 9 days of client crisis that I wouldn't be around to help solve.

Doug is one of the cooler characters I know.  He just chuckled.

"You know, you gotta let it go," he said. "It'll all be here when you get back."

That's both good and bad.  But also true.  My co-workers will also be here the entire time I'm gone, doing my job.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Something about Doug's casual confidence snapped my trance open.  Reminded me that I will have 12 hours on a plane to learn how to say "hello!" in Hungarian. That I know exactly what walking shoes I need to buy and where I'm going to buy them and that I'll buy them tomorrow.   That I actually made a recipe list and drinks list and grocery list for my party. That I have a passport and a plane ticket and a friend meeting me at the airport in Budapest who will take care of me.

It's great.  32 hours later, I'm still breathing.