Where has all the excitement gone?

1 minute

As my day of departure gets closer, I keep getting asked if I am excited. And I don’t really know how to answer that because the answer I have sounds a little bullshit — I don’t get excited. I can look forward to things, but excitement is a bridge too far.

Maybe its a question of what excitement means? Dictionary says ‘Its a feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness’ with synonyms like elation, animation, enthusiasm, eagerness, anticipation, feverishness, fever, delirium, agitation, emotion, fire, fieriness, intensity, zeal, zest; informal pep, vim, zing, spark.

To me, that sounds more an emotional exhaustion than excitement.

That led to to think why do I not get excited. I blame the fact that I like to plan — I make timelines, lists, excel spreadsheets, Evernote folders, and Todoist projects. Everything that needs to be done is noted,  mapped, and measured. I like to pack few days before I go, and I like to do laundry few days before I pack. Haircut, bread trimming, shopping — I like to get that all done early. Maps are collected, Tripadviser consulted, proposed itineraries made, and accommodation booked.  So the preparation for the trip happens weeks and months before the trip itself. The complex and amorphous trip preparation and trip gets broken into discrete units to be completed. The mystery is no more.

Excitement — a feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness — is about anticipation, it is something you feel before an event or occasion. But if everything is mapped and measure to be completed, it extinguishes  this anticipation. So excitement — poof!

But, there is one emotion that I still do have about my trip…