Anxiety? Me? I’m shocked
In a shocking twist of fate, here I am, feeling anxious yet again before yet another solo trip. I don’t need to look down at my Apple watch to see the stats pertaining to my racing heart; I can feel it thumping uncomfortably against my ribs. My hands are shaking, my mouth is dry, and my eyes are… not dry.
Every time I do this, I tell myself it will get a little bit easier. I tell myself I will be a little bit braver, that my anxiety will be a little bit lighter, more tolerable. As I sit here, waiting at my layover destination for a flight that will take me a couple thousand miles away from home–in a manner that feels like it’s yanking me tens of thousands of miles away from my comfort zone– and I find myself experiencing the same anxiety symptoms I’ve experienced every other time, I realize I’m not sure I was telling myself the truth. This anxiety does not feel lighter or more tolerable. Unfortunately for me, life keeps coming at us no matter how we feel about it, and so I found the weeks leading up to this trip slipping into days, which became hours and then minutes, a clock ticking closer and closer to departure, an hourglass down to the last few grains of sand, about to be completely empty.
Thanks, Mitch, for all the feelings and for the ride to the airport
It doesn’t help to be painfully, madly, completely, borderline alarmingly in love, either. As wonderful and emotional as it is to watch all the heartfelt hellos and goodbyes that you’re practically guaranteed to see at the airport, it’s something else entirely to be the one experiencing them. Even though I tried to steel my resolve on the drive there, seeing the arrival time on the car’s display system ticking down into the last ten minutes ripped filled my stomach with dread. There was something about the finality of knowing we only had a few more minutes together before we’d have to say goodbye that had tears welling up in my eyes. A few minutes with the person you love feels like nothing–when the love is there, hours become minutes, long phone calls feel like seconds, and time apart feels like a millennium. So, to have under ten minutes left? It felt like the duration of a long sigh, a fleeting look, a blink, and then it was over. After that, I’d be heading off on my own, into complete unknown, completely alone, and I could feel it. Loneliness crept its way into my mind even before we actually said goodbye. It presented me with the same old questions that it has every single time: what if I don’t make any friends? What if I’m miserable there? What if I actually can’t do this?
When Mitch pulled up to my terminal, he switched the car into park with a resounding click, and I felt all of my pre-existing anxiety symptoms ramp up. Immediately, quiet tears began rolling down my cheeks. Sometimes it can be embarrassing to let yourself be vulnerable, and in that moment, I knew my fear was written quite plainly on my face. Vulnerability has been the nature of our relationship since its beginning though, so it would be wrong to start tamping my emotions down now. So when I felt them coming on I let the tears roll. They were perfectly timed for my own public airport spectacle; a teary-eyed, heartfelt goodbye for all to see and enjoy. To make matters worse… I turned around twice to the sweetest smiling face, waving enthusiastically at me as I headed towards check-in. It was enough to make me contemplate ditching the whole idea and running back to him. Goodbye airport, goodbye trip. Yet even in the worst of my anxious panic I knew that was just an excuse to escape the discomfort of doing something that would challenge me. So I kept walking, and the tears kept rolling.
Why am I putting myself through fight or flight yet again, you ask?
Throughout my senior year of college and the last few years postgrad, I have been in a state of living which I refer to as my working hard (pet-sitting, nannying, waitressing, bartending) and playing hard (thirty countries in three years) era. During that period, I became a certified ESL (English as a Secondary Language) teacher by taking a master course online. The course was very informative and beneficial, but due to my jobs and travels at the time, I opted against a hybrid course. It would have allowed me to gain in-person experience, but it would have taken away from work and the type of traveling I was doing. This trip is that experience, or at least I hope it will be. I signed up to volunteer as a teacher in Antigua, Guatemala, for a week (yes, one week. All of these emotions are over a singular week), to put my certification to use, to see another country, and to potentially gain some clarity on the path of my career. Will that path lead include teaching? Maybe, maybe not. What better way to find out than this?
I can feel my work hard, play hard era coming to a close, and I’m simultaneously proud of all of my accomplishments from the last few fast-paced, action-packed years, and ready to settle into life in one place. There is a relationship that fulfills me at home, plants that need watering, a sourdough starter I need to feed, and a town that I love. I plan to slow down and appreciate it all, now that I’ve seen so much of the world so fast. I think my immediate future might hold a lot of domestic trips, enjoying the endless sights that the United States offers–national parks, weekend getaways, and coastal drives–but we’ll see how that unfolds another day. For now, today, my task is to find answers about teaching, and to embark on another terrifying solo journey out of the country. So here I go, literally: I’ve been writing for an hour and it’s time to go hop on this second flight.
Time to wrap this one up and get on another plane
In the past, I’ve encouraged people to be bold, to be brave, to book the flight and to take the trip. I will stand by this, always. But it’s also okay to be scared while you do it. I’ve always admired the kind of people who can do the things that scare them, and make it look like the opposite. People with natural confidence and charm, people who can rise to any occasion or speak to anyone (or any number of people) or jump headfirst into newness: into terrifying, horrifying, unknown newness with a smile on their face. I’ve always wanted to be that kind of person, and no matter how much time I spend pretending I am, or at least telling myself I will be, soon maybe, I’m just… not. And I never have been. But I’m realizing there is something to be said for the people who get up and speak even when their voices shake, the people who take a stand even when their hands shake. It’s a different kind of bravery to face the things that terrify you so much that you can’t hide how you’re feeling. So, in a couple hours, I will board my plane to Guatemala, and I can guarantee my heart will be racing, my hands will be shaking, my mouth will be dry, and there may or may not be tears in my eyes. If there are, that’s okay. Because either way, I’m getting on that plane.