an incomplete list of thoughts about travelling home for xmas

[For context, I’m a spoonie — very chronically ill. This is not easy for me.]

• I’m probably going to have a panic attack on the plane.
• I’m definitely going to have a panic attack on the plane since I have every other time. Can’t wait for that.
• Flights are over 400 bucks return for fully-refundable, but I can’t take the chance on not doing that.
• I’m definitely going to have a panic attack on the plane.
• Guess I’ll fast for the entire day pre-flight so my stomach doesn’t act up?
• Maybe two days of nothing but really simple foods, but that likely won’t help.
• I make jokes about living like this being an eating disorder but maybe it is.
• It is fucking annoying to have a food-based intolerance disorder that doesn’t make you any skinnier.
• I miss my home.
• I miss my hometown.
• I miss my cat so much.
• It’s been three long years.
• What if I gave COVID to my family?
• What if I picked up COVID from my town?
• An option where I don’t have to fly? That’s really good.
• Or rather, an option where I spend two days in a car with someone who I like a lot but does not know at all about my health issues, and one night in a place with someone who I do not know at all (and as above).
• What happens if I get sick on the road?
• Do I have enough money to find alternative transport?
• Can I even explain that to someone?
• Can I even rationalise it to myself?
• Will there be anything I can eat when I get home?
• Will my body even let me eat after the displacement of travel?
• How nauseous will I be in a place where I cannot escape?
• I’ve had two panic attacks today thinking about this.
• Shouting into the endless void and not wanting to ask for help because help is hard and help doesn’t get it.
• I am so tired of not having any certainty in my life.
• I am just going to be a burden upon my family.
• I am so broken down and tired and thin at the seams.
• Will my extended family harass me for being an artist like they do every time I see them?
• Will they finally realise I’m queer and will I get harassed about that?
• If I say ‘no I’m not coming this year’ I’ll just be letting people down.
• I always let people down.
• That’s all I ever think about and it eats away in the pit just beneath my heart every moment of every day.
• I can’t live like this.
• How do I get back here?
• Will I have to fly back?
• I would travel so much if New Zealand had a functioning railway system.
• Kiwirail killed their long-distance trains this year so I guess I’m never travelling again because planes aren’t an option and neither is the Intercity bus.
• This sucks.
• I miss my home I miss my home I miss my home.
• I went on Google Maps a couple of weeks back and wandered around my hometown for half an hour or so and everything’s changed.
• Maybe I have too.
• I want to leave this city. I can’t leave this city.
• I feel its presence echo in my bones.
• I’m trapped here.
• I don’t know what to do.