Travel and other irritating things

(I was looking for a document and found a piece of irritated writing from a recent trip)

I have forgotten my charger; this is new, usually it is the adaptor that I forget. It happened during my trip to Ahmedabad in the winter and I spent a night in a hotel room, unable to use my laptop, and starting to grasp that I am partly fighting a losing battle. No matter what I remember, there is always that one more thing.I try and be so careful, I make lists and lists but everything fails when I switch bags. It is always a bad move and I am blaming Spirit (for some reason I keep calling it Sprint) airlines. I am en route to a new city, for an interview, and I am nervous. 

Having only one personal item constrains me, my brain short circuits. Folks remind to print my boarding pass to not get charged, almost everyone is sure they will lose my luggage. The water I had carried so carefully for my medicine causes my bag to be picked in the TSA check, where the staff is funny and kind and I laugh. I am always forgetting one of these things in my bag and I am so tired of traveling like this, somewhat scattered.

I almost forget my laptop charger (a bigger tragedy) but remembered just in time and power walked all the way back because who does not enjoy the smell of a good sweat on public transit. Finally as the light rail is whooshing in a tunnel, I know what it is that I have forgotten this time. My phone charger! Ugh. I start doing instant calculations of what I need to stop doing to not arrive with a dead phone and no way to reach my hosts. I finally buy a USB cable, overpriced, guilt-inducing, but I will do a lot to stop this voice in my head saying I should have planned better and to not have to deal with the potential of arriving with an effectively useless phone.

Considering the weeks I am having, I did plan quite well. I packed days in advance, I went to bed on time and woke up and graded things and made it on time to a meeting with a suitcase while those without were still late. But it isn’t ever enough. Things are getting done, but not all that well. I remind myself done is often better than perfect (although people I have worked with in the past would disagree). I tell myself bigger disasters are being averted by these small things but I can’t help that twinge of envy for folks who are well-organized, who travel lots but aren’t overcome by forgetfulness that is in part stress induced and in part the result of non-strategically hardwired brain. I am sitting here with a delicious Chipotle meal and no fork because of course it fell down on the way over and it is taking a lot to not just give up and decide to go home. But I can’t, won’t do that, even though the prospect is incredibly satisfying right now. Occasionally travel is super irritating and I lose all sense of proportion of good and bad. I just want the weekend to be here. I am going to crawl under the covers and not come out for a while.