It's Monday night & I've made it home from Greensboro only to find myself faced with "the suitcase" that needs to be ready to go by the time we head for the airport on Saturday. One of my all-time favorite movies, for whatever reason, is As Good As It Gets. What a fantastic movie! I'm reminded of the scene where Jack Nicholson is packing his suitcase for his trip to Maryland and everything is in perfect order. He's got everything lined up in perfect little lines, perfectly folded and arranged by colors... it's an amazing sight really. So if you were to look at my suitcase right now, it would look NOTHING like that Jack Nicholson moment.
I've managed to take all of my clothes out of my closet (at the time, I thought I was selecting ONLY those I wanted to take) and pile them up into a big heap about 2 feet tall. Everything is spilling out all over the floor. There's no way it would all fit even if it were perfectly folded and organized, and I haven't even added in any shoes, toiletries, or jeans, now that I think of it.
The reason behind this is very simple. I'm the world's worst packer. That's all there is to it. I never know what to bring anywhere. I can't coordinate outfits ahead of time because you just never know what you'll be in the mood to wear, you know? And if I can't coordinate any outfits, then it makes it kind of hard to even figure out how many shirts & pants I'll even need... How am I supposed to know this? I mean, let's look at this realistically for a second. For the past 2 weeks, I've worn 1 pair of pants. Yes, that's right. One pair. Of course, I'm not working at the moment, so I don't have to bathe everyday and dress up for work at the time being which helps :o) A lot. But really, last week was 1 pair of pants and I don't know how many shirts because I go to the gym a lot and I have a gym shirt & then change shirts when I'm not at the gym. So there you have it. 1 pair of pants & an unknown amount of shirts. So this helps me NONE when figuring out how much of what to bring with me.
Let's look at this past weekend when I packed for Greensboro for the weekend. I planned on being there for 3 days and 2 nights. So I brought a couple long-sleeved t-shirts, a pair of jeans, and a pair of sweatpants. Well, I ended up not being able to wear the jeans at all (long story...) and then we had a freak snow/ice storm so the sweatpants I was going to wear to bed became my everyday/everywhere pants, but when you go hiking in the snow, it's kind of hard to wear the same soaked, icy pants when you go to climb into bed for the night. So I ended up having to borrow pants. And then I was snowed in for an extra day anyway. See where I'm going with this? It was the shortest trip ever and I still wasn't prepared & had to borrow stuff.
So, now I'm just sitting here thinking about this big mound of a suitcase I have and wishing that my sister would just plan it all out for me :) Since we're going to Peru together, I thought I'd take a look at her suitcase to get some kind of idea as to what to bring... Well, hers looked much closer to Jack Nicholson's bag than mine. She has everything rolled & folded & counted, etc. Hmmm.
And then I'm reminded of when I went to Brasil and I spent a lot of time packing that suitcase. I can't say I did the best job at it or anything, but at least I gave it some thought. And then my bag got lost at the airport & I didn't get it back until the night before I left to return home. From that experience I've learned a couple of things:
1) Always bring underwear in your carry-on bag (oh, if only I had done this! It's a real pain to have to wear the same pair for weeks, turning them inside out back & forth on alternating days, as well as borrowing underwear from other people because for some reason NO ONE wants to let people borrow their underwear! What's up with that? And I couldn't find a place to even buy any...). Yes, this is the golden rule. I think I'll put AT LEAST 10 pairs in my carry-on this go 'round.
2) Toothbrush & toothpaste are helpful. It stinks when you don't have it for a while. I don't like my teeth when they're fuzzy ;) Especially when having to meet new people right away before being able to find a store to buy some.
3) You can never plan well enough for the unexpected! For instance, missing bags... Okay, even if you have an extra pair of clothes in your carry-on also, are you really going to wear it every single day?? I mean, I know you can pick things up along the way, but when you know that you have all of these items in the "missing bag," it's kind of hard to swallow spending money on the exact same things all over again.
And maybe if I was a better packer, I'd have more insight into hints & "learnings," but that's really all I have so far... lol.
So maybe I'll start with my carry-on this time:
Underwear? Check!
Extra pair of clothes? Check!
Toothbrush & toothpaste? Check!
Wow. That was easy! I'm all packed & ready to go! :)
