Yes! No! Maybe?

On Friday night I was blog-stalking an ex-friend. One link led to another and I found myself staring at a Qantas ad that said 60% off.

Jack and I can fly to Australia in December for $1766. That's the cost for BOTH of us. I think usually that's about the price for one person.

I never imagined I'd be returning to Australia so soon. This would be 2009! But it was too good of a deal to ignore. I asked Jack how he felt about returning to Australia. He was happy with it. I asked Tim if it would be okay with him if we went. He said it was fine. He also said he thought we could afford it.

I didn't purchase the tickets right away. I thought about it a lot that day. I tested out different dates and time; trying to get the cheapest price.

Tim and I talked about what we'd do about hotels. We came up with two options that would work pretty well for us.

I still have our passes to Wildlife World and the Aquarium. If we went back, we could put them to good use.

I can see the friends I love.

Everything seemed perfect.

We watched Lost on Saturday night. The plan was after the movie, Tim would help me buy the tickets. I wanted him there with me to make sure I didn't make some stupid mistake. I wanted him to read the prices for me; make sure I'm not imagining something or missing the fine print.

Before I did this, I emailed Tracey to tell her the news. And I wanted to make sure I could spend a weekend with her in Launceston. I didn't want to go all the way to Australia and not see one of my best friends. It's not that I didn't think she'd want to reject me. It's just with it being December....I didn't want to intrude on extended family time.

She emailed back. Yes we could definitely stay with her.

We were all ready to buy the tickets.

Then I decided to check one more time with Jack. I asked him if he wanted to go, and this time he hesitated a bit. He didn't seem so sure. And he had said something earlier...something like Tim MIGHT come, right? We had to explain to him. No, Tim was definitely not coming.

The thing is when he showed this hesitation, I wasn't disappointed. I was relieved! I felt like this huge burden was lifted off of me.

I realized I didn't want to go. How could that be? I'm the damn girl who wishes she was Australian? How can I be this person and not want to go to Australia? What the hell is wrong with me?

I do know some of the things that scared me.

1. The typical guilt of spending money on something that would make me happy.

2. Guilt about taking Jack away from his father for over two weeks. It's ridiculous. though. Tim has been out of the country and away from us for weeks. Why is that okay to me; but for us to take a trip out of the country is not?

3. I think the change of plans in itself bothered me. We had said we were returning in 2011. I felt weird about changing that. Am I messing with destiny? Or is coming back in 2009 are true destiny?

4. Fear of having a bad time. The first trip was great. The second trip was super amazingly great. What if the third trip totally sucked?

5. Fear of being on a 15 hour flight....and in economy class! It was so much better breaking it all up with a trip to Hawaii in between. How the hell would we manage to sit for 15 damn hours? How would I keep Jack entertained? Even if he managed to sleep 7 hours, that still leaves us with eight more to go! And on the plane he usually sleeps only 4-5 hours.

6. Superstitious stuff. I found the deal while looking at a blog of someone I strongly dislike. Is that a bad omen?


I felt I should go to Australia.

I felt I should WANT to go to Australia.

And I thought I did want this. But as soon as I felt that relief when Jack hesitated, I knew what my true feelings had been. This past weekend, I had kept asking Jack if he wanted to go to Australia. He'd say yes and I'd keep asking if he was sure. I'd warn him Tim wouldn't be there. I'd warn him about the long flight. I kept trying to get him to say he didn't want to go. Then I could be off the hook.

I felt so relieved last night.

We'd go to Australia in 2011 as we originally planned.

We'd go to Hawaii in 2010.

All was right in the world.

But the story doesn't end there.

Several times today, (yesterday by the time I post this) I forgot that we weren't going back to Australia in December. I keep thinking we're going and then I'd think.... Oh yeah. We didn't buy those plane tickets.

Now I'm a little disappointed.

Now I'm having second thoughts.

Today, I started thinking. Hey, if Qantas if having awesome deals, maybe Jetstar is too! Maybe Jack and I can fly through Hawaii. Then we won't have the 15 hour flights.

Well, I checked out the flights. They DON'T have deals. And seeing how much flights usually cost has really made me realize how huge of a deal this Qantas thing is.

Now I'm back to square one.

To go or not to go. That would be the question.

I don't know.

I really don't.

You know what this is like? It's like when I took the pregnancy test with Jack. I wanted to be pregnant. I took the test and it came out negative. I was so relieved. And then a little bit later, I was horribly disappointed. I took the test again later and had an answer that filled me with ecstatic joy.

I think I'm just going to give myself sometime to figure things out.

I think the deadline for the deal is April 15. A part of me is thinking I should wait. They might have another deal later on. They might have an even better deal. And if they don't, maybe it was meant to be.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online