more traveling

The trip for work got pushed back again. Now they are saying maybe it will be a few weeks from now. It’s been at least a year since they first brought it up. The other day I was trying to say that this trip would be hanging over me the rest of my life, but I accidentally said “lives” instead. And you know, I think that’s more accurate. I’ll be reincarnated, some confused little kid thinking “I don’t even have a job! Why do I have to go on a business trip?”

But now another situation has come up where one of my family members is in very poor health, so I am having to go down to Virginia anyway, this weekend, to see them. I mean, I don’t have to in this case. It’s my choice. But it still doesn’t really feel like it is, because even though I want to see them, I don’t want to make this trip and am dreading it so much. I want to stay home and have things be normal.

I just have to keep reminding myself it’s important and I can’t be selfish all the time.

Plus there is another bright side to this. The trip is going to follow the exact route I’ll have to take when I go on the work trip (if that one ever actually happens), and since this one is a short trip over a weekend my wife can go with me. So it’ll be like a practice run, which I think will be really helpful.

All signs pointing to this being the right thing to do. And yet it still feels like a horrible decision made by someone who isn’t me, and I want to crawl into a cave where no one will ever expect or need me to do anything ever again.

As usually happens, my brain has already started assaulting me with extra irrational thoughts. “Your hands will only really be clean if you wash them in THIS sink. The other one’s no good.” “If you wear mismatching clothes to bed, you’ll get sick.” Things that make no sense, just little things that I guess make me feel like I am in control. Or could be in control, I should say, because I’m doing my best to ignore these thoughts. But it’s strange how they suddenly appear and feel absolutely true even though I can see how insane they are.

I’m hoping I’ll feel better once we leave and I have to start going through the motions of getting through this. The anticipation is always the worst part. I’m so used to my safe routine and it feels surreal to even imagine doing something else. But in reality, it probably won’t be that strange.

I mean, the NYC trip went so much better than I thought it would. Maybe this will be totally fine. Sometimes I think I am stuck in this mentality of thinking my anxiety is still as bad as it was a few years ago. That’s obviously not true. I think back to things I said or wrote during that time period and can barely remember what it was like to feel that way. I guess that’s part of the worry - that things got so terrible so fast, and it was so unexpected, and I am still not even sure why it happened. Part of me wonders if something will set it off again, as unlikely as that seems.

At least this trip will give me plenty more opportunities to try out the CYEAT book’s special technique for fighting negative thoughts.