more on road trips

The test run drive went really well. I didn't even need to get out my written affirmations. It was a quiet, non-stressful drive. Most of the time we were surrounded by farmland. On the way there, I could feel the anxiety start in my stomach at times, and I just tried to bring my attention back to the external world - the music playing, the scenery. I read somewhere (no clue where, my brain is way overloaded with self-help books and websites) about playing a game with yourself to calm down where you look for something that starts with the letter "A", then the letter "B", etc. So I used that to distract myself too.

Sometimes when I start to "feel sick" I view it as a kind of black and white transition where I've left the realm of calmness / happiness, and that's it - now there's no going back. But on this drive I happened to be able to tap into logic (for once) and realize that only a few seconds had passed between feeling absolutely fine and feeling "off" in some way. Obviously I still was absolutely fine and was able to return to feeling that way with a little effort.

I felt a little "sick" after eating in the restaurant too, but it didn't last long, maybe about five to ten minutes of the drive back home. All in all, I'm super pleased with how it went, although I do keep thinking about how tame a challenge it was compared to the much longer trip coming up. My main areas of concern are:

-- the drive itself. We'll be on the road longer, there will definitely be more traffic and crazy drivers. Plus having to eat during the drive.

-- staying in a hotel. The last time I actually threw up, I was in a hotel, on vacation with my family. I know some emetophobes have bad associations with certain foods because they were sick after eating them. That didn't happen to me, but I guess I associate hotels in general (well, they do all look alike and smell alike) with the experience and feel slightly unsafe in them.

-- I'll be meeting my nephew for the first time. He's a little over a year old. I might have to hold him. Part of me really wants to. I've loved him since the day he was born and the first pictures went up on facebook. But part of me worries he will spit up on me. Or get sick on me? At what age does it stop being called spit-up? I have no clue, but really it makes no difference to me.

-- eating in general on the trip, eating away from home, eating around other people. I need more practice with this.

We are planning to have a couple more of these "test run" trips, if we have time to fit them in. The goal for the next one is to go eat somewhere and then go out shopping instead of coming straight back home.