It's Getting Real Up in Here

The plane tickets are purchased.  With fear and trembling, I booked two tickets, on a non stop flight from Philadelphia to Madrid, on April 8, 2015, and the return on May 20.  Up until now, the impending pilgrimage was a dream, now there's an actual document, now there's a departure hour.
I would like to tell you that I am all in on this one, I would like to tell you that I'm yearning to get out there on the Way, but the truth is, I've got the fear.  I've got the fear that something's going to go wrong, I've got the fear about leaving Michele and the kids for over a month.  You name it, I'm probably worrying about it.  It's a big thing, this trip.  I have been feeling my empathetic connection with Hobbits rather strongly of late, and so I guess that the purchase of tickets is like Bilbo signing that contract with the Dwarves bound for Eriabor.
As much as it's been fun to plan and buy gear, and more gear, as much as I am actually looking for the purpose and simplicity of walking, there's a part of me that would just as soon stay in the Shire (or in my case Southern Maryland).
But this is an adventure I need to take.
I have been battling the desire for control of this adventure a little too much.  That's what worry usually amounts to: fretting about things you can not (and sometimes should not) control.  Anxiety becomes a way of life... and it's not a good one.
Probably since the first time I read Tolkien, the prospect of taking a step out of my front door and just going, walking, driving, riding, whatever, has always fascinated me, but without some sort of inducement, it's not a thing that people do very much.  After all, one knows there will be privations of various sorts, blisters and sunburns, drenching rains and stinging winds, uncertain access to facilities, and numerous invasions of the personal cushion we have become so used to in the modern world.  I'm wondering about silly things, like what it will be to go a month without Sportscenter and being able to Google something at will.  I'm wondering what it will be like to be a homeless wanderer in a foreign land, missing my wife and children.  I'm wondering what it will be like to challenge my body, day after day, and to have my body change in response.  On my four day trip last year my calves bulged out to 1.5 times their normal diameter, they were huge and as hard as a rock, this is a long enough journey that other changes (hopefully for the better) will occur physically.  Also on my four day trip last year, and on my Appalachian Trail hike with Jack last summer, I suffered from dehydration.  On my return from Santiago in 2013, this led to a kidney infection as the result of an obstruction in the bile duct, aka a stuck kidney stone.
It wasn't a very good welcome home present.
But still, this is an adventure I need to take, because I spend too much time sitting here in front of a computer screen, because I think I need to let go of some of this anxiety, because I need to get on the way, and embrace a simpler way.
I felt, when I came home in 2013, that I had unfinished business with the Camino, I had just sort of dipped my foot in the pool, even though I got my compostela, I was not really done.  I may not really be done on May 20.  I'm getting the sense that this sort of journey could become a way of life, actually I'm hoping that it does.  Because in all this, for all the things I worry about, at least the worries are as real and plausible as can be.
Say what you want about it, but at least I know what I fear, and that's a pretty good first step.
When I come back I will be done with the Way of St. James for a while, but I'm going to have other journeys to take, journeys that are probably more dangerous and more important.
But first, this is an adventure I need to take.