Big Life Events Always Come with a Meltdown; Or is that Just Me?

It was after midnight when the real weight of this trip hit me. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a combination of things that led to it really. Once I'd committed to packing up the computer my desk no longer looked right at all. And once the important pictures had come off the walls to be packed away the house no longer looked quite right. Old Oreo the cat was completely aware something was up but still snoozing and looking older by the minute. But it was my passwords that threw me over the edge.
 
That's right, I am terrible at passwords and so I've made a list of them on a legal pad and for some reason have been carrying it around with me these last few weeks just in case anyone needed one. Yes, I do realize how stupid and dangerous that is to do. And our IT guy at Channel 2 Jeff Kautz warned me not to. But I did. And late last night as I was checking and rechecking confirmation numbers, you know to avoid that awkward showing up to travel on the wrong day kind of thing, it went missing. Now I know it was in the house, but even a half hour of panicked searching couldn't locate it. And as I had a meltdown about how irresponsible it was of me to lose it, how important all those numbers were and surmised how someone could get into anything with that list and steal me blind, my son Johnny stepped up.
 
First he helped me look. And that is one amazing thing because he is without a doubt the one of us who loses everything. But he seriously picked up and helped me look, even though we were both dog tired. And when it didn't turn up, he started cracking jokes to cool the meltdown. He hooked the internet back up and used his computer to show me how easy it would be to find and change all the passwords while I was sitting in airports today. And he convinced me that while it was something stupid to lose, it was easier to replace than say a missing passport. 
 
And even though we only got about three hours of sleep, I felt sick to my stomach and I was still a nervous wreck when my daughter arrived at 6:30 in the morning, I did get out the door.

It seems that the emotional meltdown is just a part of the deal; the balance to good things from an adventure like this to our annual Christmas parties. It's the stress release for projects and trips and events.     

We had a tremendous load of luggage to lug into the airport and an emotional good-bye. I did come to terms with the fact that I had to change a ton of passwords, that I'd left a skirt I wanted with me in the dryer, and that I'd have to replace a phone charger I'd forgotten. But I've decided not to look back. I'm looking forward instead. Forward to getting to Boston, forward to getting to Ireland tomorrow, and forward to hearing where that darn password list turns up.