This morning, a representative from Allied is stopping by to give us a cost estimate for moving our belongings across the United States. I’m crossing my fingers it doesn’t cut in too severely to our moving bonus.

Yesterday, I spent an hour or more searching for the cheapest one-way car rentals. Many seemed like a steal. Take Dollar Car Rental for example, the weekly fee was 351.00. I went through the entire reservation process before I noticed that there was a 650.00 one-way drop off fee applied. That, including the rent, the normal fee, the gas and our lodging would have surely driven us into financial ruin. Pun whole-heartedly intended. National was just pricey. No unlimited mileage for the mini-vans. I have no idea why that was the only car suffering from distance anxiety.

Finally, it came down to Avis. For those of you who care, you can rent a mini-van for a week from Avis for the low low price of 621.15 bucks. That includes all the hidden fees and unlimited mileage. On top of our gas and insurance, we’re coming in at just under a grand. (I hope). Lodging on top of that shouldn’t be too bad. We have decided that instead of seeing the Grand Canyon this time around, we’d go direct. We’ll see the Rockies and Salt Lake City, Utah, we’ll drive right through Death Valley and much of the desert. That should take my west coast edge off.

I laid awake for a better part of the night thinking about everything. Thinking, is probably not the best word to describe my sleepless night. It was more like panicking. Though, I have been told that the cats would fare better driving with us, I’m still not happy about having them do so. Who else worries about their animals so intensely? One can’t help but wonder if I’m transferring a bit of fear.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still very excited. But I’m still also a nervous wreck as well. I have taken to writing friendly strangers living in San Francisco in hopes of arranging to meet up one day and chat. (Now that I have typed that out, it doesn’t seem as intrusive and strange.)

I know this fear and nervousness will go away. But for now, I have basically put my life here on hold. Hell, in some cases, I have already left it. I physically can’t bring myself into pottery any longer. And yoga? Forget about it! I have this idea in my head that it will be the last time I will every walk into the studio again. And I get worked up because I liked everyone so much. So what do I do? Instead of facing my fear of saying good bye, I just stop going. That’s an excellent way to keep friendships. Why am I such a massive wimp?

To take my mind off saying good by and facing my insecurities, I am going to switch gears this morning and start worrying about flying. Yeah.