Zoning Comission

I'm a good deal out of my comfort zone this evening, if my comfort zone was Wales (I do find Wales an oddly comforting place) then I'd say I'm in Bangladesh. I'm naked in Bangladesh in the middle of a busy street with a timed exam paper on physics in one hand and a small broken snow globe of Wales in the other hand. I don't feel good.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to Malta to do a comedy night and the nature of my diary at the moment and the billion bits and pieces I have to do means I only sat down today to check where Malta is on a map. It's a little further away than I thought and that has utterly thrown me for a loop.

I feel very underprepared... despite having packed yesterday, repacked today, checked my paperwork 3 or 4 times, repacked this evening, set off for the airport 12 hours early and made sure I know who I'm meeting at the airport (even checking pictures again online for people I've met dozens of times just to be sure). I still feel underprepared.

This is the reality of anxiety I think, well, at least it is for me. I am capable of doing things a lot of other people wouldn't do; ie, standing in front of 1500 people saying things I've thought of myself. But travelling to the stage makes me go cold and sweaty. I think it's important to push yourself out of your comfort zone, always leaving a little light trail to show yourself you can go back when you need to but that you're perfectly safe if you step out for a break.

I'm brick scared about the travelling, but have no anxiety about the aeroplane. For me it's all about the paperwork I need, and the timings and the being at the right gate. It makes my stomach go to liquid. Hurtling up into the abyss en route to tell jokes to people who don't have English as a first language? Not bothered. Happy to die in either of those scenarios if the need arises.

There's no real point to this post, it's not for sympathy or anything, but I've posted before about my mental health skirmishes and it reached a much wider audience of people with similar afflictions than I'd imagined so I think it's good to keep talking about it. I don't think people who didn't know me would imagine I was like this so hopefully it'll show people that it happens to us all. Keep going.