Vacation: A relaxing time spent with friends and family, typically filled with hilarious stories, great but slightly unhealthy and expensive food, and lots of traveling through traffic to reach a little slice of paradise.
Before you’re able to put your toes in the sand, you have to do something you most likely dread… PACK.
1. Procrastination and Denial
This is the first stage where everything goes wrong. You put off packing because you think you have more time than you actually do. We all think packing will be simple, quick and painless, so we tend to just say, “I’ll do it later.” However, “later” was three days ago and it’s the night before you wake up early to hit the road. Oops… you did it again!
2. Panic
Now that you’ve waited until the last minute to pack, all of the clothes that you wanted to pack are in your hamper and of course those are the ones you’ve been imagining yourself bringing. You frantically search for acceptable clothes to bring along. This is the stage where you slowly sink into the pit of self-hate. You can only blame yourself for your poor decisions leading up until this point. You don’t know what to pack now, so you may start to hyperventilate or just want to give up and not go on this fabulous vacation that you’ve been counting down the days until you leave.
3. Over-Anxiety
You start talking to yourself about all of the things you need to pack, and you frantically throw them in your suitcase and your duffle bag. You are now developing “chronic over-packing,” because you didn’t plan ahead. You want to bring everything because you don’t want to need it on your trip. It’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it, amirite? Wrong! Over-packing is the enemy of every vacation!
4. Confusion
This is the stage where you question everything, including your sanity. Why is your suitcase so heavy? How did all of this stuff get in your suitcase? Why is packing so difficult? How did you accumulate all of this “stuff?” How do people pack “lightly?” No, you shouldn’t try to empty an entire drawer into a duffle bag.
5. Acceptance
Well, time is dwindling down and now this is where you just acknowledge that you’ve over-packed (again), and now have repacked your bags…twice. The 12 pairs of pants came down to a whopping four pairs, and two pairs of shorts. Only two bathing suits made the cut instead of the original four that you tried to smuggle in your drawstring bag. The essentials obviously made it easy to get rid of the unnecessary products and articles of clothing. This is how it’s going to be.
Before you continue creating negative scenarios of how your vacation will be—breathe. It will be fun. Take the emotional roller-coaster that you just put yourself through as a learning experience.
Think about the sand making your feet soft and the sun kissing your skin and don’t forget sunscreen and your toothbrush! But, most importantly, have a happy vacation!
