Packing is such a chore.

How do I decide just how much I should bring of everything?  When do I decide that too much, is too much?  Where do I say stop to bringing little things that don’t really amount to much, until I’ve brought too many and it’s taken over half of my suitcase?  What do I bring, and what do I buy when I get there?

I mean, for camps and short term trips, it’s easy to pack for.  After all, it’s over in a week, and things aren’t essential when you can return to it in five days.  I used to laugh at how much my mum always wanted to pack when I left for these things, but now I wonder how my mum has packed for all those long extended family trips and known just how much we needed for each trip.

Especially since she had to pack for three people.  I’m only packing for one, and I’m struggling.

This just makes me realise how much I don’t ever want children or any sort of dependents.  Or they can pack their own things (nekminnit the kids pack an entire suitcase of candy and toys and there’s nothing practical whatsoever inside the case.  Worse, they bring toy guns and warfare toys and we all get detained at the airport).

And how do I pack away the things that are intangible? In-jokes and impromptu DnMs? Those Looks between friends? Meeting gazes across a crowded room and making faces at each other before bursting into laughter?  The warmth from a multitude of hugs?  I know I’ll meet new friends and these will happen anyway, but it’s not the same.

Having said that though, it will be great to be away from everyone familiar for a year.  People are going to change, relationships are going to change, I’m going to change, and all these changes will make something new and something fresh and it will all be very exciting to reacquaint myself with the familiar and be pleasantly (hopefully) surprised at how fresh everything has become.

And now I’m going to stop, because I’m starting to sound like a twelvie on tumblr philosophising on life.  Let’s see what I say when I look back on all this when I come back in a year’s time.

Three more days to go!