I find myself spending more and more time and effort trying to disabuse all my friends, neighbors, coworkers and various other associates of their jealousy of my impending adventure. It seems everyone I talk to who knows about my trip has told me how jealous they are, how amazing it is that I’m taking this trip, or expounds on their physical flexibility when it comes my suitcase. And my response has always been “No! If you knew what I was getting myself into, you wouldn’t be jealous! You’d be as nervous and full of trepidation as I am!”
(Trepidation. Yeah, I used it.)
But today, I started wondering why.
Because today I also realized something. For some reason it’s the fact that others are jealous of me…of ME…that’s been making me all sorts of anxious and so insistent that they are overlooking the seriousness of the situation. I am clearly very uncomfortable with this position. Granted, as far as I know it’s not one I’m accustomed to be in, but I could say that about being able to eat a banana sundae with brownies every day without gaining weight, and I think I’d be able to handle that with no difficulties whatsoever.
Anyway. The fact remains that they haven’t misunderstood the gravity, the significance of this trip – they all understand it perfectly well! They also know just how awesome this trip will be, and are perfectly correct in thinking I’m going to have an amazing experience that I will most likely treasure, and will definitely impact my life in all sorts of ways I haven’t even begun to fathom, which I think is never a bad thing. They know I’m going to eat amazing food, get lots of lovely sun, go swimming in the ocean most every day, meet marvelous new people and work on perfecting my salsa dance moves. It’s me who is starting to frankly get on my nerves and needs a good smack upside the head to get me to stop worrying and start grinning like a silly fool.
So.
“Hey Morgan.”
“Yeah?”
“Quit worrying about the trip goddammit. You’re gonna have a great time. You’re gonna be safe. You’ll have no trouble meeting people. Quit downplaying how awesome this is. From now on you should just smile, or nod sadly because they can’t go, or just have them give you their address so you can send them a bonafide Brazilian postcard with a leaf taped to it or sprayed with Brazilian suntan lotion or sprinkled with Brazilian sand or chewed by a Brazilian monkey, instead of being a worrying dumbass.”
“But…”
“But what?”
“Yeah I got nothing. You’re so right. I *am* a worrying dumbass.”
“Yep. So stop.”
So I’m done. I’m done worrying and downplaying how fabulous this is, and ready to get on with being, as my friends keep telling me, awesome.
As soon as I figure out why having people jealous of me makes me so uncomfortable.
To be fair however, there is this:
