Anxiety

After high school I worked at this terrible place called TJ Maxx. I would ride the bus to work every morning and after about the first month every single day I would have a slight anxiety attack on the bus. This is not a joke. As my stop came up I would start to freak out. I didn't think that I could take walking off the bus and into the store one more time. I contemplated staying on the bus and going to Ventura every time. But I knew that I had a responsibility to go into that store and work.

Last night as I lay in my trundle bed on the ship I started to get that feeling again. I needed to be off the boat. I needed to be out of Florida. I needed to be in Provo, in my apartment, under a fuzzy blanket cuddled up with any one of my many friends. Again, I'm not kidding. I started to feel really tight in my chest. Then my breathing got heavier. Then I started to panic. I started to freak out inside. And then I had to try desperately not to cry. I prayed that I would just fall asleep and that everything would be better in the morning. However my dad started snoring which kept me up freaking out even more because I started to panic that I wouldn't even be able to go to sleep.

After kicking his feet a few times and stuffing my head between two pillows I fell asleep. And today, while I still feel tense and panicky, it's a little bit better. But I need to get home. And I won't be until probably 4 tomorrow, when I have class.

I realize how ridiculous this is. I went on a freaking cruise, for Heaven's sake! I went to Mexico! This is a vacation most people would love to be on, and I wished to be nowhere other than home. The thing is... I get like this all the time. When I go to Oxnard I start to get crazy, too. Even spending the weekend at a relative's house in Salt Lake is too much. I need to be in my own bed. I think that a total of 5 days of travel is the breaking point. I can be fine until that point. The sad thing about this is that I want to travel. I want to see different places. I want to go to Europe. I want to lick Stonehenge. I want to sleep in a love hotel in Japan. I want to eat beef stew in Bulgaria. I want to immunize Africa. I want to run the Amazing Race. I want to sing to the sea in Nova Scotia. I want to pee on an iceberg in Antarctica. I want to eat pizza in Italy. I want to swim in Greece.

But how can I do all of this without freaking out about being away from my home?