Day: July 29, 2008

There is simultaneously too much and not enough time between now and Worldcon; too much time to fret, not enough time to pack/prepare. I feel like I’m running on suppressed fear. This means it is time for me to kick those fears out into the open and take a good look at them. The monster in the shadows is terrifying, but under good light you can see that it is just a man in a rubber suit.

I am afraid that Gleek and Patch will not do well away from me. They should be fine at first. Everything will be new and exciting. But then there will come a cranky day, the kind of day when they depend on me to help them keep and even keel. I will not be there. For 10 days I will not be there. This will be a serious disruption to their worldviews. It will be the longest that they have ever been separate from me. I trust my mom and my sister-in-law to take good care of them. I do not trust the kids to be well behaved for 10 whole days. There will be Incidents that I will not be around to manage. In the end everyone will survive. Lessons will be learned. Everyone will grow. But there will be repercussions. The kids will be unsettled for weeks afterward and instead of giving them several weeks of stability, I have to throw them right into a new school year the very next week. I’m worried that won’t go well either. In short, I’m fretting over many possibilities and probabilities over which I have no control. My decision to attend Worldcon will have consequences, I just don’t know what they all are yet. And that scares me. Hopefully I’ll get the happy consequences of more confident children and a good time had by all.

Kiki and Link will be fine being away from me for 10 days. They will probably assist in caring for the younger two while they’re at my mom’s house. But they have to travel by plane, sans adults. I know I’ll walk them right to the plane, they’ll have a non-stop flight, then be met at the other end by my mom. BUT what if Link is anxious about air travel? What if the kids get rowdy on the plane and no one is there to quiet them down? And of course there is the paranoid voice that whispers of crashes both plane and car.

I am afraid of all those big names at Worldcon. I am afraid that someone will cut me down to size, make sure that I know I’m a little fish. I would love to meet some of these authors, Lois Bujold, particularly, but I will be just a face in the crowd. I need to keep that in mind now. I do not go to Worldcon for validation. I go to Worldcon to help run the table and to make contacts with folk in the dealer’s room. I go to Worldcon to help promote Schlock Mercenary and Hold Horses. I will be fine once I get there, but there will be an emotional aftermath, just as there was with Ad Astra. There is also a price to pay before hand. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sent kids out of my office in the last week. “Mommy’s busy.” “Let me think!” Having me attend conventions is expensive in home stability. It would be less expensive if this were not right after Comic Con, right on top of girls camp, just post domain name renewal, just post the magnet shipping, and right before school. Too many things. I can’t process them all.

But the fear is mixed with hope and anticipation. I’m going to have fun. The kids are going to have fun. There is the possibility for this to be a joyous time. That possibility is all the greater because I’ve kicked the fears out where I can see them.

I just scanned through the Worldcon panel listing and schedule. I am a very small fishy indeed in that pond. Not pond, ocean. Hiding under the table is starting to sound like it might be a good idea after all.

I’ve been having a hard time falling asleep lately. My brain does not stop just because I’ve declared bedtime. So I lay awake while thoughts sort and plan and fret. Eventually I do drift off. But then I wake up multiple times per night and feel great relief. I am relieved that I know exactly where all my children are, that I am an not late for anything, that I’m not expected to attend all the classes with all of my children simultaneously, that I haven’t packed all the wrong things, that I haven’t embarrassed myself publicly at Worldcon by hiding under the tables, that I haven’t forgotten to take the kids for their first day of school, that the roads between my house and Denver are not Suessian in design, that no one has a teacher who believes in humiliation as discipline, that all my clothes haven’t crawled out of my suitcases and hidden from me, that I still have time to get things done. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Two more weeks and then maybe I can rest peacefully again.