It takes fifteen hours to get from Seattle to Stockholm, not including a necessary lay-over in Iceland, London, or Amsterdam. To avoid losing my legs from lack of movement, I decided to break up my flight into two stops: August 16, I'll leave Seattle for a 2-3 day stop in Boston, Massachusetts. Then, after getting my fill of Red Sox, family accents, and babies, I'll leave the country for Stockholm, Sweden on August 19th.
So, success! Cross that one of the list. Several times. Jeesh.
In addition, on Pride Weekend, I found a used Eagle Creek traveling backpack from a nice girl on Capitol Hill. Thankfully for me, she was not daunted by my Yeti hat, boa, and silver lipstick that I had sported that morning for the parade, and I managed to score the item for under $100. I promptly brought it home, gleefully unzipped all the pockets, and wore it around for the remainder of the day. Now I have to bring back the overpriced new one I bought from REI not 24 hours before.
Actually, I've come to notice this that kind of thing is quite common for me nowadays. Once I get one thing crossed off my mammoth list, three more pop up. Half of me expected the amount of work associated with me getting to Sweden, but most of me is still reeling from the sheer scale of everything left to do in 6 weeks. It's not just moving--as I've explained to my colleagues at work—it's moving to a different country. Suddenly, I have consider that, yes, I do have to convert all of my recipes to Word documents, and yes, I do have to an external harddrive for all my DVDs, and no, it's probably not possible to ship everything—not when a freakin' 2x2 foot package costs my firstborn just to get to Bellingham.
While there are decisions I find I can make easily—like which color backpack I want or whether I want the window seat or aisle—there are some decisions that are so much exponentially harder. Like when my last day at work will be (July 30th), or whether I should pay more for a direct flight so I don't risk losing my bags (yes), or how many days I should have with my family (2 weeks), or what should I charge for my beloved scooter, Ruby (a million dollars).
Very hard. Harder than I thought they'd be, at any rate.
Don't get me wrong. I am very excited to be going to Sweden. But, sitting here in this espresso-laced coffeeshop, only blocks away from my old apartment in Capitol Hill and the streets with my other favorite hipster haunts, one has to keep a very tight grip on principles—especially when uncertainty is the only thing you're in for.
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