I AM AN ANXIOUS TRAVELLER. I arrive at airports and train stations extra early. I triple-check all of my documents, feel a tightness in my jaw and a slight clench in my stomach until I’ve arrived where I’m going. Non-anxious people tease me for being a “nervous nelly.”
I used to feel bad about it, seeing it as irrational and weak. Not anymore. I could write a book on this subject—actually, I did: A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours and Mine). I’ve learned to respect my tendency to be hypervigilant.
Recently, I was driving along a rural road at the start of a long trip that would mainly be on a large motorway. I began feeling that something could go wrong. What if I I worried, even though I still had plenty. So when I spied a petrol station just before the road I was going to take onto the motorway, I gave in to my angst and decided to fill up. Just in case.
