I’m going to Italy, by the way. That’s kind of what it feels like right now.

An afterthought.

Oh hey, I almost forgot, but I’m going to ITALY tomorrow. (Erm, today, technically.)

They say (and by they, I totally just mean Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, which if you don’t know about you should, because she’s one rad lady) that anticipation is a huge part of happiness. So, fully enjoying a trip involves anticipating it, getting excited, making packing lists, making plans, etc.

In the past I have always been a huge planner. I love guidebooks. I read travel blogs (I better, right?). I use apps like Trover to make list after list of things I want to do. I even wrote this article for Matador Network about why planning is just as much fun as traveling.

But this trip? Well, I’ve kind of blown it in the planning department. Actually, it’s more than that — I’ve blown it in the “getting excited” department. This is not to say that I’m not excited to be going to Italy. I certainly am, on a logical level. However, a combination of factors have prevented me from actually feeling that excitement on a true, emotional level. They are as follows:

1. I have been running around like a crazy person for the past 2.5 weeks. No, make that all summer, but especially the past two and a half weeks. For example, this is what has happened in the past few weeks: I did a five-day mountain bike race, drove four hours, flew to Las Vegas, attended the five-day bike trade show/expo, Interbike, went to a shitload of a meetings where all sorts of wrenches (mainly good, but still stressful) were thrown into my plans, flew back to Durango, drove more, packed up everything I needed for Italy, drove to Denver and took Macky to the airport at 5 am on Thursday. And now, apparently, I’m going to Italy. Whoop-de-fucking-do-just-tell-me-when-I-can-sleep.

2. There are still a few obstacles remaining between me and Italy. In other words, I have the world’s worst flight. Because I am broke and therefore always buy the cheapest flight available, I have an 18-hour-layover in Brussels. Now, I like ol’ Bruxelles just as much as the next person, but it’s still a city and more specifically a city in which, to my knowledge, I have no friends. This is the part where, if you are reading this blog and you happen to be in Brussels, you say, OH HEY I WANT TO TAKE THIS BLOGGER OUT TO DINNER and you email me pronto at syd.schulz@gmail.com. I will be there Saturday at noon through Sunday at 6am.

At least I have this elephant pillow…name suggestions in comments, please!

3. This trip represents a serious changing of gears and possibly a full-on identity crisis. Here’s why: I’m going to a writing conference in Sicily where I will be part of a workshop and the workshop will be workshopping the book I wrote last summer. Have I mentioned that I wrote a book? Probably not, because I haven’t thought about it since February, when I submitted my application to to this workshop. I kind of got distracted by the whole bike racing thing and how I didn’t totally suck at it. And then I went to Interbike and received a few offers, that, while tentative, make it look like I could be a full-time professional athlete next year, albeit a poor one. I’m not sure why being a writer and being a pro mountain biker seem like such huge conflicts to me, but they do. Possibly because they are both extremely absorbing jobs. You don’t just stop being an athlete when you finish a race. And you don’t just stop being a writer when you put down your pen. They’re both the kind of jobs that invade your dreams and I guess I’m not sure I will have the emotional energy to do both. Now, I suppose, is kind of the time when I try to reconcile that. And that’s sort of stressful. Like, hey Syd, figure out your entire life in the next three days, ready, set, go.

4. And lastly, I can’t afford this trip. Both bloggers and athletes are notoriously bad about talking about money. It’s much easier to just gush about all the awesome places you’ve been and all the cool things you’ve done, and leave people to speculate how on earth you afford it. So how do I afford it? Well, the honest answer, at least at the moment, is I don’t. Or, I do, but by riding a wave of hope. Hope that things will come together before my next credit card bill, or, in other words, hope that the people I wrote things for MONTHS ago and who owe me $500 will get their act together and pay me before I murder them or die of starvation. That’s the appalling thing about being a freelancer — you budget as well as you can and then one person doesn’t come through and leaves you totally in the lurch. My temptation to call them out by name on the internet is overwhelming, but in the name of professionalism (ha), I will resist. The point? If it weren’t for what I’ve dubbed the “boyfriend-bailout” I would be flying to Europe with $48.76 to my name. Awesome, that’s like 5 euros, right?

I have complete faith that when I step off the plane in Palermo, I will feel that unmistakable buzz of being in a new, unexplored place. I will fall in love with travel all over again. I will find the spirit of adventure and new experience. After all, it’s never failed me yet. And I think also, that, as it has so many time before, travel might provide me with some answers.

How do you get excited and “in the mood” before a big trip? And, equally pressing, what should I name my elephant pillow?