My Anxiety, part 2

My previous blog was to be continued... so here is the continuation.

Saturday afternoon it was time for me to get ready for my friend Josh's housewarming party. He and his fiance' had just bought a new house in October, and they invited me to come to their party. (Josh and his fiance' are a gay couple, and his fiance' also happens to be named Josh, so usually I refer to them as "the Joshes" or Josh squared). Josh is my friend from camp, who I've worked with since my very first summer, and he happens to be the lone male associate staff director. Josh is one of those people who are just completely outgoing and nothing but fun to be around, so it only seemed natural that I'd be looking forward to his housewarming party.

It would seem natural that I'd be looking forward to spending the evening at an old friend's party, but instead, it was definitely causing me more anxiety. While I love Josh, sometimes our friends aren't exactly a part of the same clique so to speak. I was a little worried that some people I'm not the best of friends with would be there. As a result I decided to take my sister with me as a guest. One thing I do know is that Tiffany is always the life of the party. If anything got a little tense for me, I knew that without a doubt Tiffany and her energy would come to the rescue.

Everything that evening seemed to be going as planned. I stopped by the mall on my way to the party and got the Joshes two of those giant Yankee candle jars as a gift. I then drove the hour down to my sister's apartment, and she had just gotten home from work. I sat down and we did the normal sister chit chatting while she was getting ready to go. Right before we left, we thought it would be a good idea to check out mapquest to find the party. The party was in a small town called Fraser, and while it was in the suburbs of Detroit (as is Tiff's apartment), neither one of us knew where the heck it was. We quickly looked at the directions and map, printed out the directions, and we were on our way.

We knew that oddly enough, it would be about a 45 minute drive from my sister's apartment to the party. I say oddly because when I looked at mapquest at home, it showed the trip from my house to the party to be an hour. So it did seem odd to me and my sister that after I drove an hour to her house, it was still going to take another 45 minutes to get to the party. We didn't really mind the drive, and we talked and laughed and giggled for the 45 minute drive. After about 50 minutes, when me and my sister both couldn't find the road to turn off of, we both started to get slightly confused. Had we missed it in the dark? My sister who was driving, had me turn on the dome light and look at the directions again. Yup, we had definitely went the right way, so where the heck was the road we were supposed to turn on? I looked up and saw a sign that said "US 23, Ann Arbor, Flint, next right." At this point I was really confused. I remember saying to my sister "Um, I didn't know 23 ran this way." She wasn't really paying me much mind, so I just sat back, utterly confused as I tried to check my mental geography of the state of Michigan. A quick moment later, I saw a sign that pointed in the direction of Brighton. Brighton??? Okay, now I was sure we weren't going in the right direction. "Um, Tiff, Brighton is right by Ann Arbor right? Which means we're not near Detroit anymore." I couldn't figure out how the heck we were off course, because we had definitely followed the directions to the T! Finally, another minute had passed when we saw a sign that said we were a few miles outside of Howell. That was when my sister finally listened to me and realized we weren't where we needed to be.

After we stopped at the parking lot of a Walgreen's, my sister called her husband to confirm that we were in fact lost. He asked us to repeat the directions that mapquest had given us. After my sister told my brother in law the directions, he immediately replied with "I don't know why the directions told you to turn left on Highland, you should have turned right. So yeah, you guys are almost an hour away from home in the wrong direction." Oh my god! I couldn't believe we were an hour in the opposite direction! That meant that it was going to take us almost an hour to get where we started!!! On the drive back in the opposite direction, my sister and I considered not going to the party. After some contemplating, we decided that since I had driven an hour down, and went to the trouble of buying a gift, we might as well go to the party. Better late than never right? I called my friend Josh and explained what happened, and he was very understanding and told us to just get there when we could. No harm, no foul.

So great, we were still headed to the party. My ginger pills really were a lifesaver, because I would surely have gotten carsick by that point if I hadn't taken them beforehand. On the next hour and a half leg of our trip, my sister and I started having more serious conversations. My sister was lecturing me (I swear she's starting to turn in to my big sister) about putting myself "out there" more, and not being so quick to reject a guy. Then she started telling me about how she'd like to have a baby within the next few years. I grumbled about that fact that with the rate I was going, I wouldn't even be considering a child for the next ten years. My sister then went on to tell me that it wasn't a big deal for me, that I could wait, but she could not. She needed to have a baby soon, because she wants her future children to remember when she was able to get on the floor and play with them. She said she'll be crippled soon enough, and that she doesn't want her future children to always remember her like that. Then she started telling me about how her neurologist is fearful for her because her MS has presented itself to be so incredibly "aggressive" and that it's key to find a way to get it under control.

Sigh. As if I haven't been anxious enough as it is. Now I'm listening to my sister talk about becoming crippled, as if she's talking about the weather. I mean, I guess it's okay that she's comfortable enough to talk about it, but still, something about it being so matter-of-fact really bothers me. I didn't try to show it to her then, but her words still haunt me. So now, today, it's Wednesday (technically Thursday now) and I'm still thinking about that conversation.

And... stay tuned for part 3.