My boyfriend took a job in Houston and asked me to move in with him. I said yes. There is more to the story than that, obviously, but this will do for now.
Houston is a God awfully ugly city. A sprawling hodgepodge of asphalt with no rhyme or reason to its organization. The city spreads outwards devouring various townships and belching out a synthetic miasma from the chemical plants and oil refineries that give the city economic life while slowly killing its inhabitants.
In the high energy optimistic world of the late nineties Houston was also one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the country. With a population that skewed young and diverse it was a city full of ideas. Art forms of all kinds thrived, from improv to puppetry, and tech boomed. Houston is a difficult city to become intimate with but once you get to know her she reveals things of true magnificence. In this complex city a couple of things happened.
One, despite the booming economy I had trouble finding a “real” job. My first placement was a temp position in a data pit. There were people in the close confines of this airless office slowly suffocating under florescent lights who had worked there up to five years. As temps! With no raises and terrible benefits through the agency. I knew I had to get out of that hell as soon as possible.
Like most temps I worked with multiple agencies and when another one offered me a job at a different firm I jumped at it. The good was making more money. There was thirty percent hourly wage increase plus overtime. The bad was making more money. This firm required us to bill forty hours a week. Which meant working a fifty to sixty hours a week.
That job went south when my immediate supervisor quit. He gave me the heads up and let me know that they were going to offer me his job. This would mean a lot more responsibility, a minimal wage increase, and working directly with his boss. Who was an asshole and the reason my supervisor was quitting.
The next job was a temp to perm job. Straight forty hour weeks with half days on Fridays and my own office. And, with the wage increase, I was making close to the same money even without the overtime. It was awesome! The people I worked with were great and the company was supportive. Twenty years later I am still friends with one of my former coworkers. A month before I was going to go permanent the company got bought. There was a hiring freeze and the department was ultimately disbanded.
It would be another couple of placements before I finally found a permanent position and every time I had to change jobs I had to tackle a new environment over again. Despite the circumstances I was changing jobs because *I* wanted to change jobs. Mostly. And, equally important, with every change I made more money which gave me more freedom and independence.
Two, my boyfriend’s job required him to travel. A lot. A single project could take three to six weeks and they would often send him out on one project after the other. This resulted in us spending the majority of our time apart. We developed entire lives independent from each other.
Three, the boy and I got married. There is more to the story than that. But this will do for now. All of his travelling, our living of separate lives, had led to a separation. We agreed that if he took another job requiring 60, 70, 80 percent travel, that it would be on the condition that I be able to travel with him. At least sometimes. He took the job and we arranged our lives accordingly.
I traveled with my husband but we didn’t travel together. I would fly into the city a day or two after he did. Make my way to the hotel. Stay for a week or two. While he spent his days doing corporate battle under cold florescent lights I explored the streets of Sao Paulo, the museums of Paris, the ancient sights of Athens. Alone I walked Beale Street in Memphis and along the cobbled streets of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico.
If adjusting to a new job description and corporate culture every few months emboldened me then travel opened me. Invisible I sank into the masses absorbing the smells, the tastes, the textures of the food, the unspoken languages, the millions of different ways that people express their passions. At my own pace, in my own time, by my own choices.
Confronting your fears is a commonly touted tactic for getting over them. Too often, however, especially in the case of parents, we force that confrontation on to others. Forcing an anxious person into a situation that makes them anxious compounds the problem. It shows them that their worst fears are true. They have no agency, no control, no power in their own lives.
Not only does this not work it can make things worse. Anxious people will seek out ways to gain control or to escape. In extreme cases this can lead to eating disorders, self-harm, substance abuse, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and even suicide. Especially in young people who truly are dependent on other people and therefore, factually, have less agency.
Anxiety is about control which is ultimately about power. These circumstances allowed me to take control and own my power. I didn’t have to be there. My parents would have been thrilled if I gave up living in sin in the big city. The safety of my old room was ready and waiting for me.
Did I shed my anxiety like a butterfly freeing herself from a cocoon? Ha ha ha, no. I still have issues. Though I rarely have panic attacks I still have bouts of self-consciousness and shyness. I will always be an introvert living in a world that values extroversion.
The difference is I own those issues. On the now rare occasion that I have a panic attack I know what is happening and what breathing exercises will help. I no longer force myself into uncomfortable situations for other people or because of some vague notion of how I “should” feel or behave.
For as long as I could remember I had a recurring dream. A few times it even caused me to sleepwalk. In the second grade I once woke with one hand on the doorknob of the back door and the other holding my tennis racket.
The dream would take place wherever I was sleeping: home, friend’s house, hotel room, whatever. In it I would wake up to realize there was someone in the house. I would grab a makeshift weapon and seek out the intruder until something happened to let me know it was dream. This would happen over and over throughout the night until, when I finally really woke up, I couldn’t tell if I was still in the dream or not. For the longest time I didn’t even realize it was a nightmare despite my racing heart and sweaty palms because nothing really happened.
I haven’t had that dream since the early 2000s.