On mail drops:

I gave up on my mail drops with my departure for California looming mere days away. I hastily slapped down the lid on the largest of the boxes and walked away from the mess littering my parents dining room. There were good intentions involved with these mail drops. Great intentions, really. Visions of hemp hearts and 8 grain breakfast cereal and wholesome nutritious meals had danced merrily through my head until my incompetency and inability to pack and plan efficiently left me a defeated and broken woman, plagued by pouches of chia seeds, remorse and self-loathing.

 I am now going to admit something that I find slightly humiliating: I have been planning these mail drops for months now. MONTHS. For whatever unknown reason, I find it far easier to move bags of groceries from room to room than I do to finalize itineraries and determine amounts. These piles of oats and seeds and grains and berries have been moved from my car, to my room in New Hampshire, to the kitchen in New Hampshire, back into my car, to my room, back into the kitchen, in my car again to Massachusetts, to my sister's bedroom and finally to my parent's dining room and sun room, where they now remain, scattered throughout my parent's house in piles that are directly proportionate to the amount of despair I felt when attempting to divvy them up at the time. This is the albatross round my neck. Procrastination and packages. I couldn't even sleep in a bed last night, because it was covered in mail drop food. I have tried over and over to figure what exactly makes such a straight-forward task so challenging for me, but none of my answers are really adequate.

Yeah... that's a bed under there.

It is partially the knowledge that each ziplock bag full of sickly sweet vanilla protein powder will soon meld its nauseating fragrance with that of pungent dehydrated beans until it overpowers the taste of every other item in my box, partially just sheer unyielding procrastination, and partly the pressure-cooker of emotions that I submerge myself in every time I return home to my parents that is causing me to flail in a morass of unresolved planning and unpacked dry goods. Both hikes I imagined mail drops proceeding with good intentions and methodical ease and instead found myself overwhelmed with frustration and franticness at the last minute. I'm not a precise and methodical person. This sort of planning is not my strong suit. And yet somehow I find myself drawn to it, attracted like a moth to flame by the promise of order and preparation, which then inevitably turns to complete chaos.

On the brighter side of things: at least this hike I'm not attempting to pack up and move out of an entire house in one day.