In other big news from IRL that I don’t think I’ve shared on here: on Friday I’m going to Spain and Portugal for a little over two weeks with my childhood/high school best friend and her long-time boyfriend.
I’m hella excited because on the one hand it’s like going home and at the same time, I’ve never been to Portugal. (When I lived in Spain I made it all the way to Edinburgh but didn’t get to Portugal because of course I did. It’s me.) And I haven’t been to Barcelona and Madrid since I lived in Spain 7 years ago, so it’ll be a lot of stuff, too. And going to Spain with Caitlin, getting to show her around this place that means so much to me and knowing she would like to so much, has been something I dreamed about for a long time but never really ever thought was remotely possible. For years, Caitlin was balking at the expense of getting a passport so the actual buying a plane ticket seemed remote, let alone us going together.
But it’s happening! And on top of that, I’m excited to spend time with one of my closest friends who I may see for 2 days a year on average now. And with the person who I’m guessing she’s going to marry. I’ve spent an okay amount of time with him given how little I see Caitlin, but I like the idea of getting to know him better. Having lived with Suz and C.J. before the got married turned out to be very special to me in the way that it let me get to know C.J. better. (Also I would be having these terrible days because ~enterpreneurship culture~ and would come home to C.J. mocking it at all and like A+, thank you for that.)
Anyway, I’m very excited but also rather nervous. I’m nervous first of all because I have not had the time I would have liked to prepare for this trip. Between February and May I did almost nothing except flights and AirBnBs and then once June rolled around I’ve dug in, but between shopping, making arrangements to be away, and planning, it’s a big project which has not fit in well with my garbage fire of a life. With less than a week to go, I feel okay, but I’m sad that I haven’t had more time to do planning of attractions and whatnot. I know that it’ll be okay, but I also know that people’s recommendations to just walk around and be spontaneous in European cities are just not that great in practice a lot of the time. I do have some plans and ideas, and certainly Sevilla and Granada are places I know well enough, but I’m sad that I feel like my life has prevented me from enjoying this trip as fully as I would have if I had shown up with more plans. For all that people who are not planners treat those of us who are as wet blankets, I do have more fun when things have been planned and I don’t have to make decisions or figure things out on the fly.
And I’m nervous because Caitlin and Scott seem to live pretty healthy and active (not necessarily in the sporty sense, just that they do a lot of stuff outside the house) lives, whereas I’m over here trying to, you know, be an actual human from time to time. On top of that, I’ve never fared well with the Europe to U.S. jetlag (the lost night’s sleep is a killer for my neurological conditions) and it’s going to be hot (another bad thing for my neurological conditions). So I’m concerned that we are going to be operating at drastically different levels of energy/paces/whatever. That being said, I’ve done my best to set expectations about that, being clear about my health conditions and also saying “I’m going to do my best to not let my health problems affect your experience of the trip, but they are going to happen at some point.” So I’m just trying to take comfort in the fact that I will be in a place where I feel comfortable on my own, letting them go off on their own and try to remember that if I have to set boundaries, I’m not doing that *at them* or because I’m unfun or whatever. But I haven’t traveled with Caitlin (Scott I’m less worried about because he tends to be the older, saner member of that pair. Well he’s always the older one.) and so I’m still nervous about how she’s going to react. I mean, she’s good people and won’t like get mad at me, but we also don’t spend that much time together as an adult and I think our differing abilities to get about might just be awkward.
So maybe cross your fingers that my health isn’t the total garbage fire that it can be sometimes? That would be nice.