Duckfucious Say

People keep asking me when we find out where we're going on our first tour, which is always followed by a speculation that I must be anxious and/or freaking out about it. I've caught myself saying things like, "Yeah, it's driving me nuts!" and "I'm so ready to find out!" But that's actually not the truth. I keep saying it because it seems, conversationally, like the right thing to say.

In reality, I feel very serene and calm about the whole situation and would go so far as to say I don't really think about it all until someone else brings it up. We can't do anything to change or influence where we're going, now or after the decision is made. Right now, since we don't know where we're going, there's nothing we can really do to prepare. What kind of clothes will we need? What kind of car? How will we transport the cat? Will the new country have peanut butter, or no peanut butter?

There are just too many variables to even consider, which makes stressing (or really even thinking too hard) about it totally pointless. It's fun to daydream, of course (the Caribbean!), but it's not worth the energy to speculate and stress out.

I'm not sure where this zen-like feeling of detachment and acceptance has come from, but I'm very glad to feel this way. There's something liberating about knowing that, in a very real and not at all figurative way, our fate is totally out of our hands. Is this what religious people feel like? Or what religious people try to feel like?

I also remember feeling this way about going to college. I like to tell that old chestnut of a story about how I applied to college by taking a quiz on the internet. I took a quiz. It gave me two suggestions, one in Washington and one in Louisiana. I applied to both. I got into both. I went to the one where they seemed to want me the most (and they were like, "hey, money! For you!"). And I don't remember ever thinking, "oh god! What if I made the wrong choice?" I kind of just felt like everywhere you go there are people and trees and cars and problems and ice cream and who cares? I got lucky with Centenary, but even if I had hated it (impossible), it still would not have been worth agonizing over beforehand.

Based on my conversations with everyone in the world, I'm gathering that my lack of anxiety on this front is unusual. Probably so. It's probably a lot more normal to stress out in a situation like this, where seemingly everything is about to change and there's so much uncertainty (thanks again, Centenary, for the heads up on that one!). It sounds really stupid on paper, but when I was planning the wedding and having a bit of a freakout, one of my best friends told me that she relies on the mantra "I am a duck. This is water rolling off my back." It's not a very exotic mantra, and when, in stressful situations, I have said out loud, "I am a duck" (deep breath), people have looked at me like a might be a little bit drunk and possibly my insanity is going to make things worse. However, for me, it's extremely effective. Sometimes I'm naturally a duck. Sometimes not so much. Either way the truth is, that we'll go wherever we go. Some things about it will suck. Some will be awesome. We have no control over it. And for now that's fine.