Crossing One Finish Line

The dossier is in the bag, or at least in the hands of F3d 3x. I feel strangely dispassionate now that it's out of our hands.

I had a last minute agonization over which family photo to replace. We had a new one from a couple months ago that was clearly superior to several others. But which of the others to replace? I finally (reluctantly) ditched the photo that was most excellent of my dad and sister and others, but looked semi-crappy of the rest of us. These photos are to represent us in our best light, yes? So...

I also dragged my feet over writing up the cover letter and doing the final arranging of the documents. I can't say it was any more perfect for all that waiting. I started to laugh at myself, putting off the decisions, as trivial as they were. Just do it, already! It was just the agony of anxiety.

The guys at the mail shop boggled when they saw my stack of docs; they have been seeing most of my mailings go out the last several months, but this was the biggest stack yet. Yup, I said, this is everything... I was semi-exhausted, not jubilant. I don't have it in me to celebrate just yet after month after month of thinking we were "almost" done. I don't feel we are "done;" we just have a reprieve for a while. Now begins The Long Wait (TLW). Or rather, first begins the dossier review and then the sending to China, and then the wait to be officially logged in, and *then* we wait. So I am too anxious and emotionally tired to feel whipped up about this, or even merely upbeat. It was like the end of a marathon when it's all you can do to drag yourself across the line. Since I couldn't bring myself to spend some $130 to get it there overnight, I decided two-day would do. After the mailing label went on the package, I started wondering maybe there's yet another alternative? The guy who would usually tease me and give me a hard time gently said--"no, this will be fine. It'll get there in good time. Don't worry about it." I must have been a little pitiful if he was being that nice to me.

I did go to my favorite ice cream shop and had a couple of very yummy treats and enjoyed thinking about things other than the dossier. No guilt over having dessert in the middle of the day. There's satisfaction to having accomplished that much, the last items on the master list checked off. Now to take care of the rest of my life...