Spatially challenged

I should be packing. With five days left until our departure, I should be using this sunny Sunday afternoon to try and bring some sense of order to the chaos that has infected my little cottage. I’m sure getting organized would make me feel better; perhaps I would start sleeping through the night again or resume normal patterns of breathing. Not to mention that the M-I-L will be back in town tomorrow and she will probably have a stroke if she sees my house in its current condition…

But I just can’t cope.

I know. One would think that with all my gallivanting around the planet, I would be an expert packer by now. You’d think that after bouncing from Nashville to New York to London to Louisville to Atlanta to Joburg (and now back again) that I’d be able to take one look at a suitcase and immediately know precisely what percentage of my wardrobe it will hold without going over the airline’s weight limit. And surely I should know by now the best way to send excess baggage. Bring it along and pay for the extras when we check in? Or send it ‘cargo’ on the same flight? Perhaps DHL or FedEx would be better? Or what about those oversized containers that can be shipped across the globe (just as long as you don’t need the contents of said container for about six months)? Or would it be cheaper (not to mention more fun) to simply buy new things upon our return?

Obviously, I’ve gone through my clothes and weeded out the pants that don’t fit right, the top with the red wine stain, the sweater with the tiny hole…but no matter how many times I go through my closet, the contents don't seem to shrink! For some reason, I’m completely incapable of letting go of the red leather jacket my sister gave to me on my 21^st birthday. So it’s probably out of style and it's definitely seen better days, but I still love it! And sure, I’ve only worn it a handful of times in the last two years, but it gets a little colder in Atlanta than it does here, so I’m sure I’ll wear it again once I’m back in a cooler climate. I can’t possibly leave it behind. And yes, that trendy aqua top hanging in my closet still has the tag from my drycleaner in Atlanta pinned to the label, but I’m sure I will wear it again once I’m back home. It was just a bit too fancy for my laid back South African lifestyle. But maybe I should try it on again just to be sure it still looks good on. In fact, maybe I should try it all on and then make my final decisions. But trying everything on only gets me so far. I start to rationalize that while perhaps these jeans are slightly tight, I’m sure I’ll lose five pounds after the holidays, right? Yes, I should take these too.

I know. I have a problem.

And then there’s my husband. Roger takes one sweeping look at his cupboard; he removes an armful of shirts and pants and quickly divides them into ‘pack’ and ‘toss’ piles. He proceeds to start folding the ‘pack’ pile but I interrupt to question some of his choices. I mean, is now really a good time to be throwing out the ‘wrinkle-free’ and ‘easy care’ shirts? Unless we’re sneaking Sheila into our luggage, I’d rethink a few of those choices, I tell him. He cedes the point and trades a few non-iron shirts from the 'toss' pile for a few regular shirts in the 'pack' pile. He then proceeds to fold up the ‘pack’ pile, shove them in a few vacuum-pack bags and drop them into one of the seventeen suitcases currently scattered around the cottage. It takes him about a half-hour.

Meanwhile, I’ve just finished trying on every article of clothing I own and am now sitting on the bed in tears. One minute I want to throw ALL of it away and the next I can’t find one thing I can possibly leave behind. So I put on the only article of clothing I’m definitely not ready to pack just yet – my swim suit – and take my copy of Breaking Dawn out to the pool where I can prolong my denial. As long as I’m sitting out in the sunshine, there is still the possibility that there will be plenty of room for me to take my entire wardrobe (including all nine hundred pairs of shoes), the wok I've formed an irrational attachment to, the vase and plates I hauled over from Atlanta, the stacks of books lining my shelves, the pretty bowl Laurel gave me on my birthday last year, the CD's, DVD's, the picture frames, the pretty glassware... Yes, while I’m out here by the pool, that all seems possible. Especially for someone as spatially challenged as me. I have no idea what will fit and what won’t until I’m actually packing. Which is obviously why I can’t cope.

So here I am, still by the pool, squinting into the screen of my laptop (and eager to get back to Bella and Breaking Dawn…no comments about my teeny bopper taste in literature), but at least my blog is the one thing on my to-do list that I can manage without bursting into tears.Yep, it’s gonna be an interesting week…