It Came From Schenectady

Top five reasons I am not looking forward to visiting my family:

1. Travel drains me. Travel anywhere. I don't deal well with disruptions to my routine


2. It is cold and snowy in Schenectady. And dark, especially in winter.


3. Being around my mother drains me, too. My mother is one of those always on people who is constantly doing something. She doesn't seem to understand why someone would even want to lie on the floor staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I need to just lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling. Spending time around someone who is decisive and constantly active and engaged might be great if you're a little kid; I am no longer a little kid.


4. Something about being back there (and, to some extent even thinking about being back there) brings out all of my anxiety-driven bad habits. What makes it worse is that when my parents catch me at them, they yell at me to stop (as if I didn't know that they were undesirable?). I felt great empathy for the pet rabbit we had: the rabbit would get stressed out and would hide under a piece of furniture and nervously lick all the fur off his feet. My mother would yell at the rabbit to stop it. It didn't make him stop.


5. I was never happy living there. Going back reminds me of all that.

[Post title is stolen from a collection of science fiction stories.]