Packing

I love to travel. I always dreamed of traveling, even before I had the independence or money to do it. As newly-weds, my husband and I managed to get to new places, often by visiting college friends who had moved away and staying with them. The economy package. After a few years, he was stationed at an Army Base in Baumholder, West Germany. That was the country's name back then. I was unstoppable, studying maps and guide books and haunting the Recreation Center, which organized tours every month. We were out exploring every weekend that my husband was free, and if he could take a couple of vacation days, we would hop a tour bus to Paris or Amsterdam or wherever. We managed to visit every European country except Sweden and Portugal. If I block out most of the Army stuff, those were three of the most wonderful years of my life. History, culture, and customs overflowing. Have you ever heard the saying that a hundred miles is a long distance to the British, and a hundred years is a long time to Americans? We walked through castles that were starting to crumble before we became a country. We saw ancient Roman and Greek buildings. I especially loved walking through winding village streets with cottages that had been continually occupied for several hundred years. Back then, packing was easy. Don't groan, but polyester double knit fabrics were in their heyday. I know they went out of favor, to put it mildly, but they were wonderful for travel--fold them in a suitcase, roll them in a duffle or backpack, spend twenty hours curled up on a bus, and they always looked perfect. I was big on mixing and matching, so I didn't have to pack many pieces. Unpacking when we returned wasn't a big deal either. Ahh, the good old days. Now I still love to travel. Our family and friends are spread out, so that accounts for much of it. But we still want to explore the parts of the United States that we haven't seen yet, and go back to favorite places in Europe. But packing is a lot harder now. I have a bunch of prosthetic supplies that are thrown in the suitcase last minute. They're too expensive for the insurance companies to allow duplicates to make my life easier. Being just a tad older than I was back then, don't ask, I have prescriptions and eye drops and sundry items that get packed last minute as well. I have a master list that comes in several parts--the always-needed basics, a short list if I'll be flying, and another for overseas travel. It's definitely a bigger job than before. It's the unpacking that has me flummoxed these days. Obviously, those last-to-be-packed things come out right away because I need them. And the laundry gets done. But I often find myself getting bogged down right about then. Refilling the travel-size bottles, deciding what to do with the paper we accumulated--the brochures, maps, and local newsletters--and the souvenirs, although I'm trying to stop buying these. It's gotten to be a real drag. I know part of it is due to the fact that I'm busier than ever, so there are always things that jump in line ahead of unpacking. I'm also pretty sure that having an extra room to dump the leftovers in, so I'm not tripping over them, helps as well. I've got to figure out a solution soon because my husband is retiring in the near future and we hope to start our new travel adventures. I'm used to clutter, but this could quickly get out of control.