Anxiety is a hell of a drug.

     Well not really. I just like to sound like a jaded 70s club queen sometimes. Keeps things interesting. So, anyway! I'm back from my adventure! I went gallivanting off to Louisiana to visit mon petit ami, which was a really big test for me to see how far I've come in dealing with my anxiety. As you'll know if you've been reading for a while, homegirl has problems. Problems interacting with people, or being haunted by slightly embarrassing mistakes for years longer than is strictly necessary, or worrying myself to the point of physical illness over all the things that could potentially go wrong in a given situation. So you can see where flying alone across five states and a time zone, with a layover in the middle, could be a bit of a challenge for me. But in the words of the great Meatloaf, I would do anything for love (but he wouldn't do that. He sucks. Ipso facto, I'm a better girlfriend than Meatloaf. Schwing!), so I put on my big girl pants (they're leggings) and did it anyway. And I was really pleasantly surprised by how non-anxious I was! Airports are designed for dum-dums in the first place, so navigating them wasn't difficult at all, and it wasn't even stressful to interact with the people working in them or on the planes, because in a place like an airport, you know the employees have all seen some shit. They are used to the stupidest, most belligerent people on earth; you'd have to do something incredibly, catastrophically, brain-meltingly stupid for them to even remember it. So it doesn't matter if the question you need answered really is stupid. 

     Aside from those sort of organizational, "be in place A at time B" aspects of traveling, it was completely stress-free. That's what makes me say "Anxiety is a hell of a drug." It's so amusing to me that my brain decides talking to the nice old dude at the ticket counter is cause for abject terror, while hurtling through the sky at 500 miles per hour in a tuna can with wings is a totally chill delight. It's like all the fear I was allotted in this life was assigned to people and the passage of time, and there was none left to go towards normal things like fear of, oh, I dunno, literally any situation that could lead to my death. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Brains are funny little things. 

     So yes! I can now officially boast having traveled alone without getting irreparably lost (keyword irreparably. I got lost driving once, but I figured it out, so it doesn't count) or having a panic attack. The only issue I ran into is the part during takeoff where it feels like your head is squashing down like a Barbie face under a shoe. I still don't love that. 

 Yes, like dees.