Southampton Tomorrow in All Good Things

I'm looking forward to getting away. I'm not sure why. Suddenly I want out of my house, the home where I've been so happily hiding from the world for the past few months. It's not that I want to go anywhere in particular, I'm just feeling somewhat claustrophobic.

I haven't really got out of bed the past two days. Well, I got up and all, but then lay on the bed all day reading fanfic. It was a reaction to suddenly feeling so much better, so much more normal. All of a sudden it feels like the pressure has returned. If I'm okay, then people will have all these expectations of me again instead of leaving me alone in my little world of bliss. I'll have to go out there and do all these things I don't want to do and be utterly miserable again and I just can't do that. Not yet, at least.

It's quite nice, having a breakdown. Nobody expects anything of you.

I'm gonna have to deal with this at some stage, and I think I'll be able to. Just not quite yet.

Southampton this week with Jon and Simon, Manchester next week with Sam, then a hefty dose of real life in Dubai. That'll be the big test. I'm already starting to fear it, my stomach clenching, my breath shallowing. It's only four days, damn it. I endured a week of 18-hour work days in Dubai last year and was fine, so whatever they throw at me on this trip I can handle. It's only four days. And two aeroplane flights. Two airports that I know so well that I can zone out completely and not even have to think about. I can watch Jon and Simon in my head and not be aware of where I am or what I'm doing. I know where I'm staying, I know how everything works, where everything is. There's nothing scary about it. I'll even probably be working with one of my friends (sadly, though, not Annette).

And I can do the job. I don't have to be there mentally or emotionally to do it; my body can see it through without any input from me. I can just enjoy the sunshine and the warmth and the glistening ocean and empty desert space around me.

But first I get to do tomorrow what I most want to do in all the world. And I feel so incredibly lucky.