Old Dog. New Tricks.

For some people, packing for a trip is an art form. Clothing is chosen with care and placed in a suitcase precisely, toiletries are in the correct ziplock-type bags to prevent spillage, etc. For me, packing for a trip has been a study in procrastination. I leave everything to the last minute. Case in point, when moving to Prague to teach, I left off packing until the night before. I ended up with way more stuff than I needed, and it was jumbled together in my suitcases in a tangle of clothes, shoes, and other miscellaneous junk. You would have thought I would have learned from my past mistakes and started culling the things to be packed for my return journey to the states last year in plenty of time to fit everything I needed into two suitcases and been able to ship the rest. Not so much. I crammed as much as I could into two suitcases, boxed up some stuff to ship home, and left the rest while I went out with my roommates and friends to drink more than I should have with an international flight the next day. I ended up having to pay a fee because my suitcases were over the weight limit for the domestic flight from New York to Ohio.

It's a year later, almost to the date, and I have a trip coming up. It's not so big as a trans-Atlantic move, and I'm not flying--I'm driving to Nashville for the North American National Championships for Irish Dance. I leave Thursday morning, and wonder of wonders, I started packing my suitcase last night. This old dog has learned a new trick.