Head Trip: on the road with anxiety
All that separates me from my neighbors is a line of blacktop driveway. I hear them get in and out of the car, I know when they have friends over or do some gardening or their kid has a tantrum. I mean, not to be creepy about it — I can’t help being able to hear them. They probably hear me, too, when I have tantrums.
Even that line of blacktop is bigger than the distance I kept from New York apartment building neighbors over the years, whose arguments could be heard from across the hall, whose kids seemed to roller-skate upstairs, or who fell asleep with the radio on and the window open.
I’ve gotten used to this proximity to others, but I can’t say that I like it. Combined with my quiet temperament, it creates a straight-jacketed reluctance to make my own noise. Plus, there’s always the risk of small talk on the sidewalk.
Through lockdown, I was constantly aware of people because they were all always at home, too, right alongside me. No vacations or day-trips, no days at work. Even on some safe outdoor excursion I might take, everyone else was there, too. I’ve craved silence and a deeper privacy than the suburbs can provide since the pandemic started — but if I’m honest, also since well before that.
When things opened up a bit and my partner and I had the chance to travel, we were happy to go, despite…
