Anxiety's anxious loophole
144 words
A friend of mine in her seventies was nervous about the fact that she would soon need to drive to O’Hare Airport, alone in the car, to pick someone up, so the week before she had to drive to O’Hare for real, she drove to O’Hare for practice.
This seemed to soothe her, as her practice drive had none of the pressure, it seemed, as the real drive. Still, she was driving to O’Hare both times, undertaking the dreaded chore an extra time to stave off the dread of doing it in the first place.
Nervous people like this make sense to me, even as I’ve been trying, for many years, to be a less nervous person.
Her decoy drive to O’Hare, anxiety’s anxious loophole, was it really necessary?
Yes. To calm myself, I often need to double my difficulties to make them bearable.