Anxiety Girl

Let’s get one thing straight: I am a worrier. I’m fairly sure this is a genetic trait, or at least learned, because I am only the most recent in a long line of worriers. In high school, my friends dubbed me Anxiety Girl. It was meant to make me a kind of superhero—Anxiety Girl! Able to leap to conclusions in a single bound!—but we tend to refer to it more like my version of Dexter’s Dark Passenger (albeit a considerably less bloody version). “How’s Anxiety Girl today? Anxiety Girl reared her ugly head in calc. Tell Anxiety Girl to take a step back for a second.” I am compelled to worry. If there wasn’t something to worry about…I’m not actually sure what would happen, because there is always something to worry about.

Now. Apply this to extended transatlantic travel. Doesn’t sound good, right? Luckily, Anxiety Girl has so far kept it in check. Knock on wood, cross my palms with salt, whatever warding-away-evil trick you prefer. But this has created an interesting phenomenon. I’m worried that I will worry too much to enjoy my trip. Objectively, I can realize how ridiculous this is. I’m preemptively freaking out that I will freak out too much while studying abroad to enjoy it. Objectivity, however, is kind of an elusive state.

I’ve tried your typical controls for this-yoga (least flexible person on the planet), meditation (clear your mind, yeah right), ect, and had little luck. The best cure, I’ve discovered, it being around other people who don’t share this worry gene. The kryptonite for anxiety, at least for me, is a chill friend. Someone who will look skeptically at me while I sob because we’ve missed our tube stop (I have a public transportation thing) and be all like, “Dudebro. It’s fine. We’ll catch the next one.”

So here’s to all the cool and composed people in the world who keep my special brand of crazy under control, and here’s hoping one of your kind will befriend me in London. Please. I need you.