Knowing, not knowing: a dilemma

Inside the 30-day freakout window

My weekly acupuncture appointments for my thumb continue. It’s getting better; I have some movement in the joint and it doesn’t hurt too much. But it’s still swollen. It probably doesn’t help that Marcus and I are trying to play tennis once a week. In my mind, this is only problematic when I want to use my two-handed backhand, so, about 50% of the time I am not making my hand worse. To make up for it, now I type normally with my right hand, but tap the keyboard with an unsharpened pencil held in my left hand. It works great! (It does not work great.)

I am out of patience with this hand thing. Let’s go, thumb. What is your deal? I promise you, First Digit, we can find other ways to be “special” other than you not working. So how about it? That’d be great. Mkay?

During last week’s acupuncture/sob session, I had a meltdown on the table and convinced myself there is NO WAY I can fly all the way to Germany by myself on October 1. Nope. Not possible. Cannot do it.

I know I’ll be okay once I’m there, and I know I’ll be okay on the way back, since I’ll have made it there and survived (IF I make it there). But there are too many unknown quantities about getting there.

My brain likes to know what’s going to happen next. It likes plans, familiarity, known quantities, routine, comfort. It does not like that old saying about feeling the fear and “doing it” anyway. If you want to take that approach to life, good for you! But when I can feel years being shaved off my life as my system fills with stress hormones, I tend not to wander too far out of the zone. Maybe that makes my life smaller? Perhaps. But how big does my life really need to be? At least as far as travel goes. Because I could also drag out the ol’ Carbon Footprint argument here.

My mind is trying to fill in all the missing bits about getting from here to there. It’s filling in the unknown parts with hard, scary things. Or in some cases a generic “general freakout” placeholder.

I wish I could fill these unknowns with other things. Like the knowledge it will be okay. Or more specific knowledge about what the trip will be like.

The day after my acupuncture meltdown, a curious thing happened. It felt like some of the anxiety had started to dissolve. I still woke up at 5 a.m. worrying, but it seemed less harsh. Like, it somehow felt … maybe possible. Still not possible, but at least not impossible.

What is this strange sensation? Could it be … a glimmer of self-confidence? I won’t go that far. Seems kind of fishy.

But the extra clarity helped me look at my trip differently. What if I could fill in some of those unknown travel variables?

I got to work.

I chose my meal for the overseas flight. Now I know what I’m having to eat.

I’ve asked my friend who is an ayurvedic practitioner to help me come up with snack ideas, so I don’t have food freakouts (my brain works waaaaaay better when it’s had enough to eat).

I found out what size my “personal item” can be for my Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Leipzig (i.e., how much food can I bring? Lol)

I looked up a map of the Frankfurt Airport and found out I’ll need to change terminals. I watched a video of changing terminals. I read some forums on people’s experiences flying “non-Schengen to Schengen” in FRA.

I emailed the airport, asking if they could provide someone to help me traverse the process of deplaning, getting through immigration and customs, finding my suitcase, and getting to another terminal. They wrote back saying they do not provide help like that. (Thanks to an article in the NYT, I discovered some airports and airlines can train their employees to help people with "hidden disabilities." How neat! Sadly, FRA is not on the list. Hey Frankfurt, maybe think about doing that.)

Then I discovered American Airlines has additional services available for people who might need a little more help. So next on my list is to call them and see if assistance might be available.

I could berate myself for feeling like I might need some extra help. But if there’s a nice person to at least walk me to where I need to go next, what would be wrong with that? Is it wrong to want to avoid getting overwhelmed by stress and crowds and noise and signage? Am I not autistic enough? Am I being selfish?

Maybe.

However I am the only person who can answer that for myself.

I started wondering, would I prefer it if everything were known? What if I could plug in values for all the variables in the equation of my life? I am supposed to say that would be bad—or at the very least boring. Not to mention impossible.

But it kind of gets you wondering, eh? What is the right amount of knowing versus not knowing?

You are the only person who can answer that for yourself.

2013, Belize. One of my last international trips and it was a doozie getting there. In this photo we’re on a boat, about to trek into the jungle to look for howler monkeys. I am not so sure how I feel about that. (Also in picture: my step-sister Tanya, her daughter and her mom.)

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