Packing

These next few weeks will be devoted primarily to the following activities: goodbyes, cleaning, and PACKING!  I’m trying to say my farewells to a number of very important people in my life, and a lot of that will take place in the span of just a couple of days as friends come back to town for a new school year…  Of course, it’s NOT as though I’m going to be gone forever…  But I will be away for a solid eleven months…  And actually, it’s really going to be more like a year and a bit, due to driving both ways from VA to CA, plus some travel plans I have following the completion of the program.  I’d love to find a friend or two in the program and travel throughout the pacific north west for a few weeks.  One place I absolutely MUST go also is Glacier National Park.  It’s been a dream of mine to visit there for many years…  But I digress…

I’ll also be cleaning because I’d like to leave my room and our house in excellent condition while I am away.  Now, as far as what happens after I’m gone … I’ve got no control over that.  But I’d like to get loose ends tied up and loose belongings put away…

But the biggest single project is PACKING!  There are so many things that AmeriCorps recommends that I bring …  And though it doesn’t seem like much other than clothes and toiletries, it feels like a lot…  Actually, it feels like they’re ASKING us to bring a lot, but expecting that we keep everything to an absolute minimum.  Mom keeps giving me a hard time about how I’m going to fit everything into my car.  But really I’m not bringing much, and this is the space I have available to fill!

The really difficult thing is that when they ask you to bring one or two outfits for each season … you think to yourself, “Which two outfits do I have that I will want to wear during ALL of my free time for the next year?”  It’s not an easy question to answer.  As a result, I will probably bring more than they suggest in the way of “free time clothes” because I do want all of my bases covered, and if I ever regretted anything about packing for college, it was the certain clothes I left behind.

But please don’t read this and think that I am obsessed with clothing or that I am one of those girls with an overstuffed closet. In fact, I am perfectly comfortable with the reality that I will be living most of the year out of a suitcase.  But due to the hassle of shipping things that I forget from VA to CA, I’d like to pack as much as is realistically possible WITHOUT going overboard.  My plan right now is to contain it all within two suitcases and one big plastic box (for the awkwardly sized items).  Sounds reasonable?  I think so…  I should check to see if the big plastic box fits in the trunk of my car (with the back seats up)…

So, I want to have enough clothes and footwear to keep me happy…  I want to NOT forget crucial items like a hair dryer or computer charger.  And I’m really torn about just how much “extra” stuff to bring.  I’ve already talked myself into a fan, and one decorative flower pot, as well as my colorful fabric boxes and laundry hamper.  But do I bring a holiday decoration or two?  Do I bring anything for a halloween costume?  It sounds silly to bring these things, but chances are I’ll be tempted to buy new things if I don’t have them with me.  And what good would that do?  I’ll still end the year with the stuff, and I’ll be out the money, all for the sake of being more moderately packed?  It’s a good thing I was only a girl scout for a few years.  I’ve already got the “be prepared” hardwired into my brain…  Years of scouting probably would have made me a MANIAC.

But packing has also meant some new purchases …  New winter coat (that I needed anyway), new athletic gear (I needed to replace mine), and some other odds and ends that included a wheel lock for my car.  So far, I think the three-in-one winter coat from L.L.Bean ($60) and the new running shoes from Nike ($99) have been my best purchases.  I mean, the coat included a fleece jacket as an under layer that completely separates from the shell as its own coat.  How great is that?

I think at this point, I’ve gathered most of the big items that I’ll need.  What remains are a few odd purchases (sunscreen, for instance) and the packing of my everyday things (shirts, pants) that I am reluctant to tuck away because I still use.  It all sounds so easy when I put it that way … but it still feels like I’ve got quite a long way to go.

And of course, I LITERALLY do have a long way.  Three weeks and three thousand miles separate me from the start of my AmeriCorps service.  I think I’ve run out of new ways to say that I’m EXCITED, but trust me, I AM!