On Overpacking
Pondering what to bring on my upcoming trip to California.
Recently one of my friends from high school, who I hadn’t talked to in a while, texted me asking, “Where in the world are you and what in the world are you doing?”
That is the reality of recent post grad life. Nobody knows where I am, nobody knows what I’m doing to make money, and my Instagram bio doesn’t have any geographical or professional indicators in it. In December I posted pictures of me in a pink graduation cap and gown to signify my completion of school, then in January some photos I took at the Eagles concert, and just the other day I posted an amalgamation of 10 pictures. With each photo in the dump being stranger than the next, it didn’t really help people decipher what my life is looking like now that I am no longer in university. If only they read my blog, then they would know. But alas they do not, because I have not told anyone about it (except Lennon, hi Lennon).
I am currently working online, which means I can pretty much come and go as I please. This week, I will be going. On Thursday I will be taking the six hour drive back to my parents house, then on Friday I will be catching air on a flight with both my parents over to Northern California for nine days to visit family members on both sides.
The trip has a few planned events with extended family on the weekends, but during the week it is mostly just me, Mother Huntley, Father Huntley, and the open road. I have a few things on my “want to do” list, but we are unaware yet if these things will be able to get done.
Sometime during the nine days I would like to take a day trip to Yosemite, which my dad and I usually do when we visit Sacramento. There’s nothing like driving into the valley and seeing the great expanse that is El Capitan in front of you. Whenever I’m in Yosemite my eyes always linger on any dark haired man I see as I am always waiting for the day I find Jimmy Chin in Yosemite at the same time as me.
I also have a cousin who works in Tahoe, and I’ve been wanting to ski at the resort he works at ever since he started working there four years ago. My dad said he would go with me, and we would get discounted tickets from my cousin. But we are unable to make plans, because by late April it will either be perfect skiing weather with fresh snow, or it will be 80 degrees outside and basically turn the mountain into a slip ‘n slide. No in between, no way to know.
When I was 12 I went to the Monterey Aquarium and haven’t stopped talking about it since. The other day Blakely, who is from LA, and I were talking about the aquarium and found out that we had both gone kayaking in the ocean near the aquarium, and both been yelled at for “touching the sea lions” when in reality the animals had swam up to our kayaks like they were trying to sink us. I have fond memories of that kayaking experience, as we were paddling out against waves and my cousin and aunt, who were in the same boat, didn’t navigate the waves correctly and flipped over, forcing them to swim out. I laugh, but if that would have happened to me, I would have definitely cried as that’s when I was still deeply afraid of water. This is also near Big Sur, where we have been looking to see if we can see and photograph any surfers early in the morning at the big waves. Big Sur would either be my redemption for not seeing any waves at Nazare or further my villain origin story if there is no swell.
The biggest event of all is that I hear back from a job I really want on Monday. Whether or not I get it, I’ll get notified then. I have a week to decide if I want to take it or not and although I am prepared to say, “I’m there!” as soon as I get that acceptance call, my mom told me that maybe I should wait a couple days to respond.
All of this to say, a majority of the trip is very up in the air and I don’t really know what I’m supposed to pack for a trip with that much unknown. Am I to just assume that all of these things will happen? I will pack gym clothes and a baseball cap for Yosemite, ski pants and a coat for skiing, my love for aquatic animals for the aquarium, an orange life jacket for kayaking (I still don’t know how to swim), and a pink sparkly dress to celebrate with mimosas if I get a job offer. I feel as though my suitcase is already full and I haven’t even packed pajamas for sleeping on my grandma’s couch.
Overpacking has been my kryptonite recently. When I drove home for winter break, Blakely said the back of my car looked like I was moving out because there was so much. In my defense, my room back home doesn’t have pillows so I always have to bring mine home, and pillows take up a lot of room! But I must admit I brought home way too many clothes to only wear sweatpants and lay on the couch for the majority of December.
When I came back home from NYC I had the humbling experience of having one bag over 50lbs and the other one around 40lbs and therefore I was kneeling before the check luggage attendant moving handfuls of clothes from one suitcase to another as fast as possible. It gave me flashbacks to doing my laundry in laundromats in Madrid when I dropped my underwear in front of a 30-year-old man and he just stood staring at it until I picked it up.
The real problem is not overpacking, it is that I want to be prepared for any situation that might take place. I have this little problem with control! When I’m trying to put a positive spin on it, I tell people that I am a natural born leader. If the leader’s kayak was capsized by the ocean, the leader would have an extra outfit ready and throw the other ones into a dirty clothes bag.
I also always want to look flawless. Which is another aspect that we must discuss – how flawless are you allowed to look at a family reunion? Most of these people have not seen, or spoken to me, since I was in high school. That means that the red and blue parachute-material romper I bought at a vintage store over the weekend that Blakely claimed, “Would be perfect for a fourth of July party” might not be a good choice. I might also opt to leave my blue eyeliner and “GIRLS ❤ MY SWAG” t-shirt at home. But just because this is a family reunion, I don’t want to fully resort back to my full high school self of only wearing gym shorts and t-shirts. Especially when I just opted to not bring my favorite t-shirt. Maybe I can still bring it and only wear it on one of the days it will just be Mother and Father Huntley and I. Father Huntley loves the shirt, he gets his infamous high pitched giggle whenever I wear it. I would not call myself a fashionista, but I do like to dress a little odd. I like to wear things that make people ask themselves, Does that actually look good together or is she just strutting towards me confidently right now?
Northern California is another problem in my ever growing list. Does anyone ever really know what the temperature is? Even when I go in the middle of the summer, I’m always cold in the mornings and evenings. I’m also pretty sure it rains a lot in the spring because I know it rains a lot here in the spring. This means I have to be ready for a wide array of different temperatures and weather. This looming project over my head seems as though it just continues to get darker.
I took to Reddit to ask my fellow fashionistas what they do about overpacking. Reddit is good because it’s a populated and knowledgeable place to turn to when I want to find sources for quotes when none of my friends relate to something I’m writing about, and it always provides opinions from a wide range of people. Reddit is bad because everyone has really weird usernames and then I have to use those names to give credit to the people.
Evelinisantini absolutely ridiculed me by saying, “I used to overpack and then I realized none of my fears were even rooted in reality lol. Do I normally shit myself everyday on vacation? No? Then there's no need to bring extra underwear when I normally only go through 1 pair a day. And even if I did, underwear can be washed.”
This opinion is invalid though because my fear of falling in the ocean is actually very real as I have seen it happen before. I also don’t generally have a problem with packing too many pairs of underwear – on my first out of town soccer tournament in the 4th grade I completely forgot to pack underwear and my dad had to take me to Target to get some.
Another notable piece of advice is to just pack the basics and anything else can be bought there. That is an interesting idea but have they considered that I am scared of spending money? This is a valid option though, and is what is playing in my head whenever I’m sitting in the airplane seat, about to take off, and start to get anxious that I forgot something I need. In reality, all I really need is my phone, wallet, and notebook (it’s a necessity) and anything else I forget can be replaced.
The main place I go wrong is in the shoe department. I’m a really big fan of shoes. I am also very insecure about my toes, so I always need a good lineup of shoes and socks. I will not be elaborating more on why I am insecure about my toes. I have white hard-bottomed shoes, like everyone else in the world, that are my go-to day-to-day shoes, then I have tennis shoes that I run in, and I like to bring my birkenstocks with me. I suppose three pairs of shoes is okay, but then there are other shoes that come creeping into my mind. I am totally in love with my Jordans and feel like I cannot go anywhere without them. Also if we’re going to Yosemite, shouldn’t I bring chacos, to hike and then get in the stream if it’s warmer outside? Except then we come back to the toe problem, so maybe not. Shoes take up a lot of room, and I really love shoes.
The most helpful, and obvious advice came from anon28374691 who said, “What are you actually going to wear on your trip? Same stuff you wear at home. You wear it at home because you like it and you feel good in it. That’s how you want to feel on vacation. Comfortable and like yourself.”
I often try not to repeat outfits when I’m in the town I live in. Not because I think outfit repeating is a criminal offense – I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. Fashion and creating outfits is one of the ways I flex my creative muscles, and when I repeat outfits I am not flexing those muscles. But packing is already stressful enough, I don’t need to bring creativity into it. I can just think back to the outfits that were the simplest, the most comfortable, and pack those.
I must also remember that a lot of my cousins, and a few of my aunts, already follow me on Instagram so they already have an up-front view of the person I really am, and not the quiet person I tend to play at family gatherings. They are fully aware that I walked around NYC in my “GIRLS ❤ MY SWAG” t-shirt, a short jean skirt, and cowboy boots. I am slowly becoming more comfortable to be myself around everyone.
It is currently Tuesday evening as I am writing this, and I have elected to put the stress of packing onto my future self, which my future self will be mad about tomorrow. Although Wednesday I only have plans at 6 p.m. when Blakely is reading some poems out of a book she wrote and I will be standing in the crowd wearing a sweatsuit, holding a camcorder like the mom in Mean Girls. Afterwards, since her mother is in town, we will be going out to a bar to get what we like to call, “a little drinky drink.” Mother Blakely is from Los Angeles and she hasn’t spent much time in Oklahoma. Blakley and I have been speaking about how we can have her experience the whole city in one night. To start, we will be parking in our favorite dirt patch, which is located a block outside downtown. We always park there when we go downtown and spend the whole walk after parking talking in country accents trying to one up each other by saying things such as, “I’ve known that dirt patch longer than I’ve known my own mother!” or “That dirt patch was my first kiss!” and ending with “I cheated on my wife with that dirt patch!” We will then be taking her to a Hawaiian tiki bar, a two-step bar, then ending the night at a dueling piano bar where they only play “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
I now realize I have written well over 2,000 words just about my overpacking tendencies and how I plan to pack for my trip and maybe I should have spent that time packing! I also expect this only to be interesting, and hopefully worthwhile, to those who also struggle with overpacking. For that, I must apologize to Lennon for reading through this entire essay, as she has no trouble with packing the correct amount of things.
Bon voyage then, and I’ll see you in California.
Yours truly,
Calihan