Travelling Nightmares

When having a crazy, fun adventure, and anxiety interfere.

I discovered something incredible when I sat down to write about my travel experiences.

They were untouchable. For all the places I have traveled and all the crazy experiences I’ve had…they were so difficult to write about. It was almost like an unprocessed trauma. The feelings rose up inside of me as though I was re-experiencing the sequence of events, but the words…just wouldn’t come.

I had no language to describe them in.

I wonder if that is because I have anxiety. Anxiety about strangers, anxiety about danger, anxiety about getting lost and anxiety about missing flights. Anxiety about not getting hurt, and anxiety about making others like me. That’s a whole boatload of anxiety and most of it is specific to travelling!

When I am home, most of that anxiety can be kept at bay. I can live my life avoiding most of those triggers. I can do things in a way that work for me.

Travelling, on the other hand, is a giant leap right into the lions den. Quite literally, if you want to talk about my month long trip to Africa.

Travelling for me, is traumatic.

It is a huge mountain to climb from the moment we embark until the moment we get home. During that climb I work tirelessly to a) keep my anxieties at bay and remain calm, b) try to actually enjoy the experiences that I would rather not be having but anyone else would die for and somewhere in my head I know that I would love if not for my anxiety that I don’t admit I have, and c) do all of the above in a way that allows my husband to feel like he had a great vacation with me.

Why do I do it???

That’s a question for a different article, but the short of it is that I love my husband to death. My husband dreams of travelling the world. He wants to live in 12 different countries across the globe, spending a month of each year in each respective home.

That last part of it is never going to happen, I’m sorry my love. But the part where he yearns to travel the globe…how can I squash those dreams? How could I have told him as a newlywed that I didn’t want endless honeymoon adventures? After all, I did…

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