Why do we make everything so complicated? The past 2 months I have been so focused on getting out that the leaving doesn’t really seem like it is ever going to happen. You don’t get the “going to Bali” feeling. All I seem to have is this “I am SURE I have forgotten to do something” feeling.

Working for myself is part of the problem I suppose. I’m not just quitting a job I don’t like. Thats easy. Then you just eat the office cake, listen to a manager say nice things he doesn’t feel, say goodbye to people you never really cared about anyway and walk out the door. Then you can whoop and smile and yell “see ya!” over your shoulder as they all turn back to their computer screens or fight over your chair and stationary.

No, this is different. I have to ensure everything is closed off and tied up, sealed away, taken care of and set up to run while I am away. I have been delivering workshops then staying up to 11pm every night for weeks. I’m getting to the point where I am not speaking clearly, or worse occasionally break into Yoda speak in front of a room of professionals. Over worked I am. Hmmm? Yes.

But tomorrow it stops. My last meeting happens from 10:30 to 11:30 so as you read this I will be putting down my pen, shutting my work notebook and clicking my pen closed. I will probably sigh a little and then walk away. THEN finally…FINALLY I can look ahead and look up a little. Start to wonder which surfboard I should take. Whether the shoe combination should be Blundstones and walking shoes or maybe the red converse should come too. God knows what will happen if my romantic notions of walking the streets of Prague looking like the uber hip, bearded-dad-weathered-older backpacker with three children is ruined by having the wrong shoes….

But this all just makes me reflect on how complicated we make everything. You don’t realise how tangled it all is until you need to extract yourself and then you start pulling the thread. Then it just keeps on coming and coming and coming. Bank accounts and newspaper subscriptions. Old email addresses that MAY be linked to some forgotten account or subscription or membership. Medical insurance, car rego, phone bills, rental insurance. I feel like a cartoon character in a cartoon tornado with these cartoon symbols of his life spinning around him at 200kmh.

I just remind myself that once extracted….things will happen. New things that I don’t expect. Those travelling things that never happen to you when you are in the routine. Those people you never say hello to because that’s not what you do in your own city. But in a foreign city you feel like you want to say hello to everyone.

So if you are travelling north in the next few months keep your eyes out on the side of the road for a  wrist watch. Flung out the window at 100 clicks as Steppenwolf screams from the speakers and the kids are yelling at me to turn the music down.

Now THAT’S uncomplicated.