Wherein our hero decides to finally leave the country of his birth for the first time, at the age of 50.
I will admit that travel has never really been a priority for me. When I was younger, my parents, as immigrants, seemed to be focused more on survival in a foreign country rather than the luxury of travel.
So I do not have a lot of experience traveling. What I do have is lots and lots of anxiety about many things. The possibility of forgetting something critical, delays, the physical discomfort of the act of travel itself, the time involved, work related overhead, expecting unexpected crises of variable natures, getting in and out of the country without incident, and my own personal medical requirements.
But, this was a huge milestone birthday for me. 50.
So when my partner suggested we go to Ireland for our birthdays I took all of those anxieties and this time, threw them out and committed to going abroad for two weeks. Something about my own state of mind and all of the situational contexts of the time that we live in, made saying, “Yes, absolutely!” feel like a decision based less out of want, but more out of need.
I was fortunate enough to have a week of travel already scheduled for a four day cruise, so I used that as a test of what I would need to do. I made lists in spreadsheets and refined them. Learned a couple of things, the most important of which were:
- I needed a travel CPAP
- I over pack
One of these items is simpler than the other (and the other required introspection so of course I put that off for later!) so I decided to work on getting a travel CPAP.
You should know. Traveling with a conventional CPAP machine is terrible. The medical devices are large, bulky, somewhat delicate, and require distilled water at your destination or carrying your own distilled water through security at the airport. This is possible because you can declare it a medically necessary liquid, however, they do make you open it and they test both you and the water for traces of explosives.
On top of all that, it is an additional item you are carrying with you. Which adds to the mental overhead associated with keeping track of bags in the first place, and the anxiety of leaving it behind somewhere is terrifying because if that happens then you are physically unable to sleep.
The first time I traveled with it I forgot a crucial component and rendered it useless, thankfully it was only a weekend convention but lesson learned and now I have a checklist from “wall to face.”
The only travel “benefit” is that as a medical device it does not count against you for bags on a flight and as an added bonus it gets to lay on the storage space in front of your seat and take up all of your leg space.
Fun fact: When I talked to my sleep therapist to get my prescription for the travel CPAP, I learned that insurance will not cover a travel CPAP because apparently sleeping on your vacation is a luxury!
After that first cruise I knew I needed to get a travel CPAP, and a not insignificant amount of money out of pocket later, I had one shipped to me.
With that out of the way I then needed to address the more difficult issue of over packing, which means I needed to unpack my own anxieties.
Yes, I do in fact see what I just did there and please let me know what band "Situational Contexts" is covering.
