Today I went shopping.
I went shopping for a variety of items I’ll need to take on my upcoming month-long trip to Costa Rica.
While I’ve done a lot of traveling in my life, I’ve never been gone for a whole month with no breaks before. In the weeks after grad school before I started my first full-time job, I went to DisneyWorld for a week, the beach for a week, and then visited some friends for a week. But these all had a day or two to recover and repack in between. Before this, my family took a vacation to Hawaii that lasted 18 days. But I was a kid and not wholly responsible for packing. Plus, in each of these situations I was able to just focus on going on the trips. Now, with a home, a job, and a husband, I have to focus more on what happens at home while I’m gone.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been focused more on the things that need to get done while I’m gone: mailing the rent check, scheduling the drinking water delivery, and other miscellaneous activities that happen monthly. This, plus the things that we do less frequently, like getting the car oil changed, is a lot to prepare for!
As I’ve been planning and taking care of these “life maintenance” activities, I forgot to pay attention to what I’m actually packing!
This packing list has been much more complex than any other! Think about it – how much stuff in your own life do you use just once or twice a month? Or what you might need, like cold medicine. Or how long you typically use something before replacing it, like a razor?
So today I went shopping.
I bought sunscreen, mascara, and ibuprofen. I stocked up on my favorite pens and extra sunglasses. But there’s other things I’m not sure if I’ll need yet. Will I run out of pages in my notebook while I’m there? Is my concealer going to last while I’m gone–does anyone really know when those tubes are truly empty?! I don’t want to be wasteful and purchase things I don’t need. On the other hand, I don’t want to run out of something important and not be able to find a substitute for it.
I have a feeling this will not be my last shopping trip before I head to Costa Rica…
