Away from Home

November 10, 2007 at 5:46 am (Anxiety, Relationships, Thoughts) (city, conference, philadelphia, travel)

So I’ve finally decided it’s okay to just be a regular person. I thought it would be fun and exciting to travel and go away on business, but it’s just more work. All I’ve wanted since I left home was to be home with my boyfriend and the pets.

This week I traveled to an educational conference in Philadelphia, and had been looking forward to it for a while. I’m a slightly nervous traveler so right off the bat there is a little anxiety attached to it, but I challenged myself to overcome it. I challenged myself to walk around the city and to talk to strangers at the conference. I did both.

The hotel I’m staying at is not near the conference. This is the case because I’m trying to stay in budget with the hotel allotment given by my school. I wasn’t smart about it when I booked the hotel, but I thought I was. It was further away than it appeared to be on the map, and as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t think I searched hard enough for an alternative. It turned out just fine though. I’ve been taking the subway into the heart of the city where the conference is being held. I felt really proud of overcoming my nervousness about being in a different city by myself, but I’m from New York so I figure I can handle myself.

Tonight when I got back from day 2 of the 3 day conference I happened to pick up a local paper and read a story about just how dangerous Philadelphia really is. Murder capitol of the world it said, people being shot in all parts of the city it said. I’ve been careful, but certainly have been walking around by myself and taking the subway. The article made me nervous enough about traveling on my own that I changed my return ticket home tomorrow to an earlier train and am going to miss the last lecture in the morning.

I don’t like to feel stupid or balk at a challenge, but I really just don’t want something bad to happen. I want to be smart about it and it seems that the smart thing to do is not to push my luck by traveling on a day when it is likely that there will be fewer people on the subway because it’s a Saturday. I have to admit that I’m not as completely adaptable as I’d like to pretend I am and that I’m not always smart in the decisions I make. Oh well, live and learn.