It should be clear by now that I’m back from the vacation, and one of the things I scribbled about before leaving was about the odd anxiety I felt.

It wasn’t fear of travel, hodophobia. It wasn’t anything cultural from working so long in the U.S., and it wasn’t that I’m afraid of change. I revel in chaos and imposing my own order on things, even if it’s not imposed publicly – I love making sense of things that no one can make sense of.

I have a short list of phobias – very short. I’ve had things blow up next to me, I’ve been shot at, I’ve been poked at with sharp pointy things, I’ve been in car accidents, I’ve seen people close to me and not close to me die.

I thought about it for some time, whittling away hours to get to the root of the anxiety and it struck me: I planned to do nothing.

That’s the root of it – for so long, I have planned to do this or that or yes, the other, but to force myself not to plan had created an anxiety.

Go figure.