As this school year ends for the season, I find myself asking: What the fuck was that?  In the course of this school year I’ve experienced chest pains, stroke symptoms (not actually having one), a staph infection in my sinuses, more chest pains,  and then an allergic reaction to medication prescribed for said pains.  Throughout the course of this school year anxiety in my body has crept to all-time highs. 

            I hate the feelings of anxiety.  It shows up in all aspects of my life.  Why won’t it go away?  Plus, this soreness that’s appeared in the scar area doesn’t help with calming said anxiety.  So I ask myself questions, I make plans, then question the plans I make asking more questions about what if? 

            Here is one basic factoid.  I’d rather die doing something fun than on my couch clutching my heart dying from an anxiety attack.  Can you die from such?  Who gives a flying… every doctor has said my heart is fine; it’s not a heart condition.  “Tim you have what’s referred to as, situational anxiety.  The good news is, it’s easy to treat.”  Whatever Doc, it’s screwing my life up. 

            So I’ve planned a tour this year, a loosely planned bicycle trip at that.  The closer the date comes for pedaling off into the sunset sunrise (I’m going east), the more I want to cancel the trip in fear that something cardiac related will happen, killing me.  Why and how I’ve developed this fear is unknown, as the last four years I haven’t had these concerns prior to departure.  Quite the contrary, I’ve looked forward to them.  Not so much this time around.

            I’ve chosen not to go on my tour this year.  Then I’ve flipped course telling myself, I have to do it.  And then I’ve turned back around and said, hell no I’m afraid to go!  And today, I’m still scared to go.  That doesn’t change things.  Scared to shit or not, I’m going.  Anxiety and heart disease cannot control my life anymore.  I’m going no matter what.  My cardiologist said he isn’t worried about my heart.  So why am I?

            After another school year riddled with health woes that appear to be stress and anxiety related, I want a smooth calming bicycle tour.  My most successful tour was the one less than a year from the shit that’s run my life.  Perhaps that needs to change – I need to run my life, not fear. 

Who wants to be normal, normal is boring.  Normal I am not, an abnormal standard seems to suite me.