I Pack My Anxiety First
Updated: Sep 6
On Travel Anxiety, Preparing for Every Possible Climate, and Going Anyway
I am leaving next week for two weeks in Florida and Iceland, which presents a confounding packing challenge. I need clothing for heat, humidity, rain, wind, cold, and possibly all four seasons for these two weeks away. I worry that I will be too hot. I worry that I will be too cold. It would help me greatly if I could travel with a foot locker carrying all of my clothing and a meteorologist.
First things first. I pack my anxiety in a nice zippered packing cube of its very own. I zip it closed so it compresses into a small, neatly compartmentalized section of my backpack. I don’t leave it at home. I take it with me because it is an integral part of the trip and an honest reflection of some of my emotions.
The goal is not to get rid of it. The goal is to keep it from taking up all the available space.
It will probably expand in transit. Anxiety is not known for respecting airline baggage restrictions.
I worry about the seven-hour flight. I worry about feeling exhausted and therefore grumpy with my travel companions. I worry about getting sick, which I seem to do every time I attempt to leave Ohio. Over the past two years, nearly every trip has been accompanied by some sort of illness and a regular visit to an ER or doctor's office. For some unknown reason, my immune system has become fiercely loyal to Ohio.
It is beginning to feel like the Hotel California. I can check out anytime I like, but apparently I can never leave.
Then there is sleep. I worry that I will snore in the room I am sharing with my sister. My niece tells me that my sister snores loudly, too, so perhaps we will simply perform a snoring duet. The trick is to fall asleep first. I know this from sleeping for decades next to Tony. The snoring issue places earplugs very high on my packing list. I worry about not sleeping well, becoming exhausted, and spending the next day tired, edgy, in a foul mood, and considerably less enchanted by the majesty of Iceland than I had intended.
I am also not entirely certain how I feel about being on a tour. Since I know almost nothing about Iceland, a tour is probably a very good idea. Someone else will know where we are going, how to get there, and whether we are about to wander onto a glacier without the appropriate equipment. I find this reassuring.
What gives me pause is sharing seven days with five strangers.
I am not unfriendly; I like to think I am selective. I am simply not particularly social unless I know you, and I do not feel an urgent need to know the intricate details of everyone’s life. I already know the intricate details of many people’s lives. I am a therapist, after all. On vacation, I would occasionally like to look out the window without learning about someone’s second marriage, difficult sister-in-law, gallbladder surgery, or unresolved conflict with a neighbor.
I am not opposed to conversation. I simply prefer that it be about something substantial. I don’t especially care about your farm in Nebraska unless something psychologically or spiritually significant happened there. Tell me what part of yourself you had to abandon in order to become the person your family needed you to be. Then, I am hooked. Tell me what you believe happens after death. Tell me about the moment you realized that everything you had believed about your life was wrong. We can discuss any of that over coffee.
Chitchat, however, exhausts me.
Is it cold enough for you? Is this your first time in Iceland? Where are you from? Are you two twins?
I will do my best to answer pleasantly while keeping my eyes firmly focused on the questioner rather than allowing them to roll so far back into my head that I can see my own brain.
Perhaps tour companies should require everyone to complete an application similar to Match.com before assigning them to a group like colleges do to match roommates. Are you comfortable with silence? Do you feel compelled to narrate scenery everyone can plainly see? How much conversation do you require before coffee? Are you likely to disclose your complete medical history before we reach the first waterfall? This information would be far more useful to me than age, occupation, or hometown.
My sister insists that she isn’t especially social and doesn’t care to talk all that much. This may be entirely true by ordinary standards though I doubt it. Compared with me, however, she is the social director on The Love Boat. She is leaps and bounds more chatty than I am and far more likely to begin a conversation with someone neither of us has ever seen before.
The last time my sister and I traveled together she picked up a stray man like a kitten as we were walking to our car. People sniff her out. I walked ahead.
When we got into the car she started to tell me some rather personal information about someone. I assumed she was talking to me about the man she had just collected.
With wide eyes and my mouth agape, I exclaimed, "You got all of that from this man in the three minutes it took us to walk to the car?"
She made a face and said, "No! I'm talking about ____!"
One of her friends.
My niece gets me completely, so I know my reserve will not disappoint her. She is simply better equipped than I am to chitchat when small talk is required. I, apparently, missed out on the chitchat gene.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but my anxiety has already entertained the possibility that our fellow travelers will be idiots I must bear for seven days. This is unfair, since I have not met them.
I know this.
They may be perfectly lovely. Some may even share my belief that companionable silence is one of civilization’s finer achievements. This possibility, while inconvenient to my argument, must be acknowledged.
And if one or two do turn out to be tiresome, why waste energy worrying about them before I have even packed my socks? I can be cordial without becoming anyone’s therapist. I can enjoy people without needing to befriend them for life. I can look out the window. Most importantly, my sister and niece will be there. I will not be alone among strangers. I will be traveling with two people I love on what has unexpectedly become a girls’ adventure.
Tony will be home with Shiva and Shakti during the two weeks I am away, and I know I will miss all three of them terribly. I wish he were coming with me. Nonetheless, I am grateful for this time with my sister and niece, but I will feel his absence.
Tony is fully engaged in the natural world. I know he would appreciate the natural beauty of Iceland. He is the sort of person who puts flies, beetles, spiders, and nearly every other small creature outside rather than squishing them. Our home apparently operates a full-service insect relocation program. I admire this about him. I share his reverence for living things right up until one of those living things scares the crap out of me. Then I am not entirely opposed to squishing it.
Sorry, Buddha.
When we lived in a house with a pool, Tony occasionally found a small animal or bird floating in the water or caught in one of the skimmers. Outside the pool fence, we had an actual animal cemetery where he laid each one to rest with a proper honoring. Nothing was treated as disposable or too insignificant to mourn. Every small life deserved his attention and respect.
This is what I mean when I say he is engaged with the natural world. He doesn’t merely enjoy beautiful scenery. He recognizes himself as being in relationship with other living things. It is one of the things I love most about him. Without question, I know Iceland would speak to him.
I plan to take as many pictures as I can, not only to document the trip but to bring some of it home to Tony. I want him to see the waterfalls, glaciers, volcanic rock, ocean, immense open sky, and maybe even the Northern Lights. If Iceland is as extraordinary as I imagine it will be, perhaps we will return on our own one day. I like that possibility. This may be my first encounter with Iceland, but perhaps it does not have to be my only one.
For now, though, I am going with my sister and niece. This may be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and I want to be present for it. I want to see what is actually in front of me rather than filtering every moment through worries about sleep, weather, illness, or whether someone on the tour bus wants to tell me about Nebraska's devastation during the Dust Bowl in 1931.
Being present does not require me to feel calm every minute. It does not mean I must leave my anxiety at home before I am permitted to experience wonder. Anxiety can come. Homesickness can come. Fatigue, irritability, and the need for solitude can come. They are honest parts of the experience, but they are not the whole experience.
There is excitement in the bag, too. There is curiosity, love for my sister and niece, longing for Tony and the kitties, and the possibility of seeing a landscape unlike anything I have ever known. There is room for all of it.
So I will pack carefully. I will bring layers, rain gear, earplugs, medications, and enough contingency plans to satisfy the planning department in my brain. I will put my anxiety in its zippered cube and compress it into a manageable section of my backpack.
I will not throw it away or pretend it isn’t there. I will simply remind it that it does not get the window seat.
And then I will go.
