When I was 20 I made a last-minute trip to New York for the Stonewall 25th anniversary celebration. I went with only the rumor of a place I might stay. I maxed out my credit card for the plane ticket. My ATM card turned out to not work on the east coast. I turned up on the doorstep of the organizing committee with my bag and no plan, and volunteered my help in return for the crash space I'd heard about on usenet.

Everything went just fine.

Where did that brave girl go?

anyway, I now have a headache from gritting my teeth for the two hours it took to make plans but I have an unreasonably expensive hotel reservation and a plane ticket and I'm spending four nights in Manhattan for GaymerX.

and it will be fine.

I don't know why I never believe it will be fine. it's always fine, why does buying plane tickets make me want to cry and hide?

This anxiety makes NO SENSE and it makes me SO MAD and that's the only way I manage to function -- I fret and get spun up and finally I'm frustrated enough to mad my way through the necessary tasks that otherwise seem inexplicably insurmountable.

So now my body is full of SCARED and MAD and there's no place to run to and nothing to run from and it is just all icky and UGH.

anyway, that's why I never want to go anywhere.

@sev okay i'm just going to say this is amazing and i am slightly in awe here

i mean i know full well that anxiety exists and is miserable and i wish you luck

but daaamn

@acetone_kitten *blush*