. . .and The Fear sets in.

I came out of the closet at work last week at long last. I've been waiting to exhale there for months and months and when the time to fess up finally came, it was a tremendous relief. Once the novelty of Steve Going to NZ wore off, the well-wishing started to die down a bit and things got back to business as usual. I could finally relax about it and really see the home stretch for what it was: a sphincter-tightening packet of fear.

Somehow the anticipation of spilling the beans at work drew my attention away from the stupendous monstrosity of this whole enterprise and now our looming departure is a couple dozen Dreaded And Unenviable Tasks away from coming off. Frankly, I'm terrified that the whole thing's getting away from me---like it's going skidding away at any moment and we'll be stranded on a 15 hour flight with a fist full of loose ends that we can't unravel and tie down any more. Or at least not without paying import and export tax on our stress as we try to manage across 20 time zones.

Maybe that's putting too fine a point on it.

I'm also terribly excited. The newness of the whole undertaking... from the toilet paper we'll use to the toothpaste to the sounds of the city and the smell of the countryside. After correcting for Jet Lag we're going to start touring Wellington's outlying areas... hopefully by train, bus and by foot. Somewhere in the Wellington suburbs is a house for us. No doubt a smallish, squat, drafty house with miniature kitchen appliances (by our standards) and a small bathroom with a big tub and towel warmers.

Not too long from now I'm going to be lying flat on my back in a foreign country staring up at the ceiling and wondering what it used to be like back in the States. For right now, that time can't come soon enough.