There’s an uncomfortable window of vulnerability right before a big trip. A vulnerability that warns, “Don’t\u00c2\u00a0lose your credit card or\u00c2\u00a0get in a car accident. Don’t wrench your back. Don’t poke yourself in the eye. Don’t get sick. Don’t make mistakes.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Not that you’d be happy doing those things any other time, but recovery at home from card misplacing, car accidents, back wrenching, eye poking, and sickness\u00c2\u00a0is at least straightforward\u00c2\u00a0and in English. When you’re ready to go on a trip, those things can terrify.<\/p>\n
I’ve misplaced my credit card before a big trip before. I apparently dropped\u00c2\u00a0my card\u00c2\u00a0after paying for gas. I had to rush a new card to my Chicago hotel,\u00c2\u00a0relying on friends to buy me rooms and meals until it arrived.<\/p>\n
I also once wrenched my back on a car trip to California. I bought a cane at a Rite-Aid and limped through the adventure.\u00c2\u00a0On an educational trip to England,\u00c2\u00a0a woman in our group had recently fallen down her basement stairs. Her face was black and blue, her arm was in a sling, and she was woozy from painkillers during our talks and field trips. I had to cancel my 40th birthday trip to Guadalajara when my toddler son broke his leg. I’ve gotten food poisoning, brochitis, and annoying colds just before traveling and coughed my way through flights, folding in on\u00c2\u00a0myself at a window seat to avoid contaminating everyone.<\/p>\n
Stuff happens. I just don’t want any stuff to happen now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s an uncomfortable window of vulnerability right before a big trip. A vulnerability that warns, “Don’t\u00c2\u00a0lose your credit card or\u00c2\u00a0get in a car accident. Don’t wrench your back. Don’t poke yourself in the eye. Don’t get sick. Don’t make mistakes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}