Traveling Lightly

I’m positively giddy at the moment. Not only am I taking a very special trip to Texas this week, but I’ve just finalized the arrangements for LibertyCon this coming summer… It’s going to be a great trip.

You know, I’d planned to write a novel before LC came back around. That seems… unlikely. But it really doesn’t matter. I’m going to see people I love, and this summer when we went, it showed me I really need that. I need to not skip that. Plus, we’re taking the Junior Mad Scientist and the Little Man this year, so that’s exciting.

I booked us into an AirBnb, the first time I’ve tried that form of lodging. Friends did it last year for the con, and it showed me how nice it would be to have a spot away from the bustle, and one with a full kitchen. Especially the kitchen. Plus, we’ll have a private house, two miles from the con hotel, all to ourselves. With two kids, and a raging introvert (no, not me. More on that in a bit) to care for, that’s important. I don’t feel like I’m depriving the con hotel at all, not one bit – you see, it took LibertyCon 32 six hours to sell out. It seems, by all accounts, to have taken the con hotel about fifteen minutes. Already there’s a network of congoers booking out into surrounding hotels (like the DaysInn literally across the street) and folks like us, setting up AirBnb’s that are a bit more versatile than a hotel room for three or four night stays.

I’ve discovered something about myself. I’m not as much of an introvert as I could be. My dear curmudgeon can happily go for a year without getting together with friends (with a sole exception), if not longer. I find myself craving contact sooner than that. Mind you, I am not looking for setting up a weekly hangout with the girls, despite an effort on my Little Man’s part to get me set up for tea parties with a friend’s mother. I’m just too daggone busy for that. But I do want more than once-a-year frenetic absorbing all the hugs and stories possible in three days followed by a con hangover (totally a thing). the problem is, the people I love are scattered literally across the globe, and while I’m no longer a poor college student, I’m now the mother of three college students. Plus, I only have so much PTO in a year. Sigh. Travel is going to be sparing and carefully planned for a few years. But I need it.

I need my friends. They kick me in the patootie when I’m being dogged by the Black. They lend me an ear when I need to rant and rave and get it off my chest. They reassure me that I’m not useless, broken, and lazy. I do my best to support them when they need it, and you know? It works pretty well most of the time. But it’s not the same online as it is in person. There’s something about being able to share a cup of coffee, and a chat, and read body language. Or just to sit and be present for a little. Talking without having to typo and lag for interruptions is much faster and more satisfying in person.

So I’m travelling. Lightly, for now. Maybe in years to come, it will be able to be more. But on the other hand, as I’m reminded more and more often these days, time is fleeting. If I don’t seize the moments now, it might be too late. And that would be a bitter pill, indeed.

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