It was a coffee ground.
In the morning, when I was cleaning the coffee grounds out of my French press, I got it all over my hands and then, like an idiot, rubbed my hands in my face. I was removing coffee from various parts of my face for the rest of the day.
The day before, I was texting my cleaning lady to let her know that I don't need her to come next week because I'll be out of town. She responded by informing me that I had left the stove on.
This is not like me. I am a clear and rational thinker.
But my brain is all over the place this week. On Monday I had such a flood of adrenaline and nervous energy that physically, it felt like the worst anxiety attack I've ever had in my life. I stopped for coffee and my way to work and realized that if I drank it, I'd go into orbit.
A week or so ago Lisa and I were talking about excitement but also nervousness about our upcoming India trip - as I type this, I'm leaving for the airport in three hours.
The excitement is obvious. And so is the nervousness, I think. It's a long way. It's a long time to be away from our homes and our children. I already haven't seen my kids in two weeks - they're in Mexico with their dad. So by the time I get home, it will be a month - I've never been away from them for that long.
And Lisa said that she hadn't been in such extremes in a long time - maybe since we were last in India. Extreme heat, extreme crowds, extreme poverty.
It's a lot.
But as it's gotten closer and closer - three days, two days, TOMORROW!!! - the nervousness has abated and the happiness has settled in.
I'm so happy to be doing this trip. I'm so happy to be doing this trip with Lisa. We're organized, we're vaccinated, we're packed.
My mother and I were talking about it yesterday and I was describing all the amazing things we're going to do. We're staying at Claridges in Delhi, where as moronic teenagers we used to go after school to drink gin & tonics. We're taking a flight along the mountain ridge that includes Mt. Everest. We're staying in a palace in Udaipur. We're staying with one of our old classmates in Kathmandu. We're going on Monday to see our school.
"Oh, Wendy. That's so incredible. I'm so happy that you're going on this trip. Thinking about you and Lisa seeing the school again after all this time - it makes me want to cry."
"I know. I know. Me too. It's crazy - being there was such a special and formative time of my life. I think being back there is going to be incredibly emotional. It's overwhelming."
Rajeev, our classmate in Nepal, called me the other day at 4:30 in the morning. He's in Thailand and didn't realize I was in Denver.
But it didn't matter. I was up.
I haven't spoken to him in 31 years, so we were catching up. I mentioned I was divorced.
"I'm so sorry!" he said.
"Oh, don't be. I'm not."
I'm so not. I'm free. I can do what I want. I feel empowered. The divorce was the beginning of me figuring out how I want to live. And bit by bit, I have. I feel better about myself and my life than I ever have.
My friend Christen is in school to become a therapist. A while ago she was telling me about this exercise that her class did in which the instructor asked people to think of a life motto or guiding principal that could be distilled down to something that could be small tattoo.
I thought about it for a second and said, "say yes."
Say yes to adventure, say yes to new experiences, say yes to love, say yes to opportunity.
When Lisa told me last year that she wanted to do a trip back to India this year to celebrate her birthday, she asked me if I wanted to go.
I didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
So off we go, and I'm so ecstatic I can barely stand it.
