Saturday's Adventure Continued...

Okay so yesterday I left off at the bike rental place. I'm feeling like a fool, because I know I can't keep up with the group, and I'm having anxiety about my heart racing, and not being able to breathe.

This is the trouble with any kind of exercise now. The normal physical symptoms of exercise mimic the symptoms of an anxiety attack. So naturally my heart is beating faster and it's harder to breathe because I'm riding my bike uphill, all this is completely normal, yet all I can think of is how scary it feels, thus creating more anxiety and even more intense physical symptoms.

So here I am with 12 people watching me and waiting for me to make a decision on whether or not I will continue. If I decide to go back to the car, Matt has to come back with me. No one else will do, as they aren't my "safe person". Ugh. It sucks so bad feeling safe only with certain people present. It's so limiting.

I know if I go back to the car, his family will be disapointed, especially the kids because Matt will leave too.

Sooooo, it turns out the rental place rents those Surrey things that two people pedal and one can sit in the middle, it's like a carriage sort of. His nephew really wanted to ride in it, and I thought well why not? How much harm can I get into if I'm just sitting there being carted around by Matt and his nephew? I feel comfortable enough in San Francisco now, that I wasn't really afraid to be cruising around the park, well, except for the fact that it is a large park and I didn't want to go too far from the car, and get lost, just in case I did have an attack.

Though come to think of it, I'm sure if we needed to someone would have driven us back. I'm so stupid sometimes when it comes to things like that. I let the irrational fear take over and don't think clearly. I mean honestly there are a billion people in the park , I'm sure someone would have given us a lift if we really needed it.

Anyhoo, we had a blast tooling around the park checking everything out, and I finally got to see the Dahlia Garden. Very cool, but very small. I totally thought it would be bigger, but it was pretty just the same.

Matt and Brian got pretty tired trying to pedal that thing around the park and it's various hills, so we ended up back at the rental place about 20 minutes early, which was fine. We wandered around for a bit, while waiting for the fast group and then finally decided to just walk back to the car. It was about a mile, and was a very nice walk.

Once we got back it took awhile for the clan to pack up all the bikes, but we finally got our act together about 8:15 or so and headed out to Chinatown for dinner. Now dinner, I have to admit I was very worried about. I feel extremely trapped in restaurants, since you are dependent on someone else to serve you and bring you a bill before you can leave. And if the service is slow... well that's even worse.

We had 14 people in our group and unless we went to a buffett, where you pay up front, I knew it was going to be a long do, So I am sorry to say I chickened out. I went so far as to go to the restaurant and check it out, but I just didn't feel comfortable staying. It was hard to have to tell everyone that we were cutting out early, but they seemed to take it well, and hopefully understand a bit. Everyone really was nice to me, and said that I was soing so well, and that they were happy to see us and glad we made it out there, so that was good.

I'm really glad we went and despite the anxiety times, which really were minor compared to what they could have been, I had a really fun time.

I can't stress enough how less the anxiety was for me. Most of it was worrying about worrying. I felt pretty good, sometimes iffy, but mostly I was just scared about "what if" I get even more scared or the symptoms get worse. Even though that sucks, believe it or not, it's a HUGE improvement. And also, there were times where I completly forgot to be anxious if you can believe that.

The way home though wasn't without it's troubles though. Eariler in the day, right when we got to the park, our car told us to STOP. So we did. Apparently it was having troubles with the cooling system and I guess it was starting to overheat. Well, of course I got scared about being stranded and what happens if the car won't start, yada yada yada. All those damn what if's again.

The funny thing is, I forgot about it completly during the whole bike riding episode, so it wasn't until we left and had stopped at a Taco Bell for dinner that I started to worry after Matt announced that the guage was indicating that it was overheating again. This was in Pacifica, and all I could think about as I ate my nachos was, "what if" we get stuck on the freeway and can't get home. This was probably the worst anxiety of the day, as it was late and dark and we actually had what seemed to be real potential of getting "trapped".

Well guess what, it didn't happen. We got home fine, and the car never overheated again. Go figure. The car goes in tomorrow for repairs, so hopefully whatever was wrong will be fixed.

Now that really is the end of the story. We had fun, I had anxiety, but it the good definitely outweighed the bad, even if it didn't sound like it from the way I'm describing it. I'm just trying to point out everything that I went through and felt, and yes there were many moments of anxiety, but they really weren't that bad, and like I said most of it was worrying about it getting worse. When it actually never did. Which means I wasted a lot of energy, that I could have used to bike up those darn hills!

Anyway tomorrow should be cool, as it will be another art day for me. I had one on Friday and started quite a few projects, and there are like 5 challenges I want to do this week, and of course all are due in a few days, so I really better make it count tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it, because I've spent the last two days, perusing Teesha Moore's blog, and I'm so inspired by her art that I can't wait to get started again on my own.