Don't You Hate Dreams Like That?

I hate being late. I hate feeling unprepared. It's a tossup which I hate more.

I leave for Cambodia the evening of Jan 1st, and as my patient reminded me today, "That's not that far away, unlike Cambodia." Pretty witty, for a 12-year-old, I thought. I just nodded and laughed and said, "Well put."

It always seems like a race against the clock between Thanksgiving and Christmas without a mission to prepare for, and to battle the constant anxiety I have been experiencing lately I have become freakishly organized and on top of things. My Christmas cards arrived this evening from Shutterfly, and soon they will be stuffed, stamped, addressed and placed in a perfectly neat little stack with a post-it note on top reminding me to mail them December 7th. I have my shopping lists ready. I have plans all ready for my new Christmas decorations. I have the date we are cutting down the tree already written on the calendar.

This gives me a little bit of relief. On the surface.

But deep down, I still feel like I am unprepared and out of time. The dream I had last night makes this obvious. In my dream I was walking down a hallway of a hotel. Suddenly this woman appears and she's really upset with me and yells "Your plane is leaving in 7 minutes!! Why haven't you packed yet?!" And so I go into this hotel room to pack but in every drawer I open all I find is Bella's baby clothes. The only thing I find to pack is a pair of ugly flip-flops from 7th grade.

If anyone has any stress-relieving tips for me, I'm all ears.