Crow and Flame

I went on vacation this week…There is a particular kind of anxiety that arrives before a vacation.

It is not excitement or anticipation.

It is fear, fear that is disguised as responsibility. Fear disguised as preparation, disguised as “making sure everything is okay.”

You tell yourself you’re being productive.

You make lists and check locks.
You replay conversations and check the weather six times.
You think through every possible thing that could go wrong while you’re gone.

If your work involves caring for other people, the anxiety follows you there too.

You think about the patients you are leaving behind.
You wonder who will fill your role while you are gone and whether things will be handled correctly, the way you would handle it… you wonder whether someone will need you and you will not be there.

Even after you leave, part of your mind stays behind at work, replaying unfinished tasks and responsibilities while you try to be present somewhere else.

Did I pack enough?
Did I forget something important?
What if something happens to someone I love?
What if something happens to me?
What if I can’t relax?
What if I ruin the trip?

The mind becomes a crow circling overhead, screaming warnings into the sky.

Anxiety does not care that you deserve rest.

It will convince you that peace is dangerous.

That if you stop worrying, something terrible will happen because you were not vigilant enough to prevent it.

And the cruel part is that anxiety often masquerades as control.

It whispers that your suffering is useful and that your hypervigilance is protection. It says that if you think hard enough, prepare enough, worry enough, you can somehow outmaneuver uncertainty itself. You cannot.

No human can.

Eventually I had to create firm boundaries with myself. Not with other people.
With myself.

I had to stop feeding the spiral.

I had to tell myself:
You are allowed to leave.
You are allowed to rest.
You are allowed to enjoy something without preparing for disaster.

You are allowed to be fully where your feet are.

That boundary sometimes looks like refusing to Google worst-case scenarios at midnight.

Sometimes it looks like putting the phone down instead of checking for bad news every ten minutes.

Sometimes it means gently pulling yourself back into the moment when your mind drifts back to work instead of the people and places right in front of you.

Sometimes it means interrupting my own thoughts and saying:
No. We are not doing this tonight.

Anxiety is hungry.

If you let it, it will consume the entire trip before you even leave your driveway.

It will steal sunsets by making you think about storms.
Steal laughter by convincing you danger is waiting around the corner.
Steal memories by trapping you inside your own head.

I’ve learned that healing is not always the absence of anxiety.

Sometimes healing is recognizing the spiral sooner.

Sometimes healing is setting boundaries with the frightened parts of yourself and saying “you may come with me but you are not driving.”

The crow still circles sometimes.

But now the flame burns louder.