I Went on a Trip!

Trips are hard. There are hotels. Which may have bedbugs. At the very least, a zillion people have trod the carpet and touched the remote control, and who knows how often they wash the bedspreads.

And I flew on an airplane. In the heart of the cold and flu season. I didn't bring any hand sanitizer with me, and while I was tempted, I never did buy any, either.

Usually I don't really enjoy my vacations. This one, I did. Especially the last day. My feet, which had been hurting from bringing the wrong shoes, suddenly felt fine. The weather, which was forecast to be cloudy, was warm with brilliant sunshine. I looked down and saw a monarch butterfly, for goodness sake. While they're not rare where I was vacationing, I'd never seen one outside of 5th grade science class, so it really just felt like a magical day.

That's some positive conditioning for stretching my comfort zone.

Happy New Year

Well, that was a giant posting gap, wasn't it? Nothing major caused it and nothing major has brought me back.

My OCD is doing its thing. As I have been for a while, I'm pretty good at doing exposures related to health/contamination issues, less good with my general anxiety stuff.

For the last 2 months, everyone around me (it seems!) has been sick with something. I've done a surprisingly good job at not avoiding anyone at these times, and not worrying much after I've spent time around them. Despite this, I still flinch (not visibly I hope!) whenever I hear someone's sick.

I had an interesting experience a little while ago. I'd been waiting a LONG time for a medical appointment. I worried about weather, I worried I'd get sick, I worried the doctor would get sick. And SHE DID. My appointment was canceled a mere hour before the appointment because the doctor got sick. This is one of the few times in my many years of OCD that something I feared actually happened. Were the consequences huge? No, but it was still jarring. I've held the totally irrational belief that my worries actually do help keep trouble away, and this is just more evidence that it isn't true. I was surprised how much that point freaked me out!

Anyway, hope everyone had a good holiday season. I'm not sure I'll be back to frequent posting, but probably won't skip an entire 6 weeks either.