A Good Week

I sat in the little chair at the family practice center this morning, with the windows overlooking the trees, creating the feeling we were surrounded by woods on all sides. It was raining. It rained all day. Sometimes in intense sheets, sometimes barely enough to warrant windshield wiper use. There were bags to pack and dishes to wash and put away but I told myself - vacation mode. Perhaps that is why I've been so calm this week, as I explained to the doctor, a young resident who made me wish I had the desire to be a doctor, too. He was such a good listener. I'd returned to the doctor after having several more "panic attacks" or whatever they are in which my heart beats rapidly in the middle of the night. I cure it with ice on my head while lying on the bathroom floor. The bathroom floor is dirty, normally, but this week I've cleaned it with a Grab It cloth. Too bad this week I didn't need it - the floor.

Anyway, elation! when the doc told me I'd pretty much self-diagnosed the problem and if I felt ok dealing with it as I had been, that was fine, or I could be prescribed something. Later, Slavomir listened in disbelief on the phone as I explained to him that I'd talked my way out of getting meds in favor of dealing with the problem myself. Am I really so mature? Perhaps I'm just proud. Whatever it is, I'm no longer worried. As I told Slav, and the doctor, it's not that I'm anxious, generally, I'm just anxious about being anxious, the beginning of said anxiousness occuring after my father was in the hospital early this year, and then again with the onset of cohabitation and all my finely honed habits being put through the wringer. Now I don't worry about much, except worrying. And hell, if I can't get over that problem myself, what can I get over?

And so I forge onward! I've been listening to Dave Brubeck, almost constantly, in my car, and turning the heat up, up higher than maybe I should be this early in the winter season. Yes, the car is still messy, with paper coffee cups and whatnot, but it's cozy. It needs some Febreeze, maybe. But I like it in there. I even like it in the doctor's office. It's vacation mode, truly.

The break will hopefully yield a period of productivity upon returning. That or I'll want to stay in Italy. Whatever the case, this was a good week. A good week to spring off of into whatever comes next.

Just Go Out and Win

Despite the fact that water is flowing from some mysterious location under the toilet here in the office each time we flush, despite the fact that I haven't yet showered and am not looking artistically cute as I'd hoped, but instead just dirty, the happy buzz of our upcoming trip is consistently beating out any feelings of annoyance I might have on a normal day. In fact, after realizing I might have to stay longer than the rest of the staff today - we've been granted leave at four this afternoon due to Veteran's Day, but I've got a potential interview with a metalsmith that I'll have to stick around for -I started to lament the hour of freedom I'll miss, but then remembered: two weeks. I'm leaving for two weeks. For two weeks I will not be doing this - and this is a job that I like! Hell, I'll probably be absolutely elated to get back to it. And so, with the long vacation, to Italy no less, and my general fortune, I decided that the complaining, even minor, was not valid not one bit.

In fact, the entire week has been somewhat unique in the relaxed atmosphere. Maybe it's just me, or at least more than the trip J and I are about to take. Sadly the one thing I can't completely shake - and most want to - is the nagging travel anxiety that haunts me each time I go anywhere from my parent's house to across the Atlantic. Screw it, I say, I'm a good traveler. Want to know the truth? I'm not.

It's not only the plane takeoff, I'm realizing, but the whole prospect of leaving home and the various responsibilities that go with it. Plus there's the philosophic angle. We get in a vehicle of transport, and we just go. We whisk off to another place, even another COUNTRY. It's so normal for friends to say "Have fun in Europe," as though getting to Europe was an easy and normal thing to do.

Therein lies the problem - it is normal and it is easy. And it's up to me with the help of some red wine to get on board with that idea. It's not major stress I feel, but more like a slight discomfort that I know, reasonably, should disperse. It's like jealousy or unwarranted anger that you know you should shake, but hold on to in the fear there is some reason for it.

But like any complaining. I just can't find reason to worry, and so I won't. Or I'll try. My friend Matt and I were on the high school track and cross country teams together. He used to tell me he was going to win the race. "It's easy," he'd say. "You just go out there and win it." Right on. Just win. I may have, in the past, thought that easier said than done, but lately, I like the thought. Just win. Just get over it.