prepared

i am getting on a plane for south carolina in about three hours.
as mentioned in an earlier post somewhere around here, i have spent this summer not being in any one place for a long time. my mother likes to use the term "traipsing," mostly in a condescending way, to describe the way at which i have been moving about life recently. "traipsing" means (v.)- to walk aimlessly, with a storklike gait. i pray that when i walk i don't look like a stork, but this summer sometimes i have felt aimless. aimless mostly because i have been moving around so fast, gone every weekend that i am traveling across the country to a place i am nowhere near prepared for and i'm not really even fazed. amazing what traveling around mostly by yourself for a whole summer will do for you. it makes you tired.
and i don't honestly know what being "unprepared" for a trip is, but it mostly is mental. i'm very excited to go, but i haven't thought about all the great things that i'm going to get to see. all the amazing food i'll eat, all the Dolly Parton fake breasts i will discover (yes, i'm going to Dollywood). my physical being has just been moving so fast that i can't seem to remember what it means to be mentally prepared for something. but i guess that can be a good thing- no expectations and an open mind i think can lead to the best kind of journeys. just waiting, prepared enough but not overanticipatory (pretty sure that's not a word).
as for "traipsing," you can be sure i'll be checking out my walk in the mirror too. maybe the storklike gait is what my mother has been referring to all these years and has just been waiting for me to really look up the word.
maybe though, with all this traipsin and unpreparedness, i'll meet a cute Clemson boy. that would make my aunt Mary very pleased. i think i can be ready for that.