so the boston trip to see a facebook friend looks pretty uncertain as i head for o’hare on sunday morning.

i sorted out with the t.s.a. that even if my ticket said ‘arlynnmissl”  that’s the same as “miss arlynn l” and then they STILL wanted to feel me up!  i got to ride first class for the first time because of my facebook friend tommy chang  who took my steerage ticket and upgraded me.  i felt like a princess when the flight attendant asked if he could hang up my coat.  but i was still uncertain as to what i would find in boston.  would i have to just hang around until my flight home?  would i visit lisa in the hospital?  would i find her at her home?  was i an intruder?

i get very bad anxiety attacks when i leave my home.  well, hell, sometimes i get them when i’m in my house too.  but i’m an avoider, an excuse maker, a “sorry i’m busy” person.  i want to be social, i want to see the world, i want to be out there, and yet what holds me back is the anxiety AND the certainty that i’ll have an anxiety attack and totally embarrass myself or lay myself open to the Hobbesian truth that nobody cares about anybody else.

thomas hobbes was a seventeenth century english philosopher who thought people had not one bit of love for one another. this is not a picture of thomas hobbes, but rather of the cartoon character from calvin and hobbes. if i have an anxiety attack in public, i assume that thomas hobbes will be proved right. the world would be a nicer place if the cat hobbes were correct.

i have tried drugs, therapy, more drugs, more therapy, drinking white wine, more drugs, more therapy.  a friend sent this article about lexapro which is a drug i have tried for anxiety attack.  most drugs, by the way, make me gain weight so i end up not taking them.  also, they’re not particularly effective.  so when i meet a facebook friend who is an adult with this condition suffering for a long time, i don’t judge.  i assume they’ve tried all the same things i’ve tried and found them just as ineffective. . . .  but this writer has a different story:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/an-appointment-with-dread/?ref=opinion

so now i am in boston, and just a few hours from meeting with my facebook friend lisa tabbi-fuller.  it was her birthday yesterday.  i hope today is the beginning of a really fabulous year!  and it’s going to start with us doing the thing that scares her the most. . .