When you’re travelling like we are you have a lot of time to think. Time that would otherwise be spent on chores at home or socializing or preparing for rehearsal or working or just avoiding your every day anxieties in general.
Who could have predicted that I would be a total crankster when I get anxious about directions? Who else besides me thinks they are communicating clearly and what is being received is pure jibberish? Does anyone else see a monumental task before them and just avoid/ignore/deny said task until they have no choice but to to deal with that big blank space in the itinerary?
Having spent thousands of dollars of therapy to work through much of my issues……….I felt like that therapy really changed my life & that I was pretty together. It turns out I definitely do not have it together.
At home in Denver, I would be gardening and cursing the Japanese beetles for eating my Virginia Creeper. I would hopefully be harvesting tomatoes and watching the bees enjoying the sunflowers. I would be loving on the kitties and doing house/car chores. I would be doing choir chores and church chores and friend/family chores. I certainly wouldn’t be thinking about my words and examining my feelings in depth. I wouldn’t be taking the time to talk to and listen carefully to Erin when we have disagreements or our individual anxieties break through. “Oh give me a home”….where I can do my chores and pretend like things don’t stress me out.
Several people have asked if we were going to be able to spend a whole year together and not kill each other on this trip. Some of my previous posts have alluded to “communication failures” and progress in dealing with those challenges. I can honestly say that I didn’t expect some of the challenges that have come up ~ mostly because I had no idea I carry so much anxiety?! I mean seriously…..WTF? Anxiety has always been for other people…..my problem has always been a touch of artist’s depression or arrogance or just an outright Leo selfishness. (I’m sure there’s a diagnosis for the artist’s depression in the DSM somewhere.)
I don’t say any of this to elicit any reassurances about my process. I say all of this to acknowledge that the road is a good therapist because it has taken me away from home and chores, You can only avoid your “stuff” for so long. The time on the road so far has proven that even this old dog can learn some new tricks. Maybe those thousands of dollars worth of therapy ARE still coming in handy?!
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