January 3rd 2022 - "I Don't Know"

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New Years day parkrun

    Something I have not mentioned on this blog before is my job, and there is no need to mention it because it is completely unrelated to the subject of this blog, I do however consider myself extremely lucky in that I occasionally get to travel to some amazing destinations for work. Last summer I was asked if I would attend an event in Florida, after some thought I said yes and the tickets were purchased and the arrangements were made. 
Moving forward to the last week and as you can imagine I am now super stressed about the situation, Florida seems to be the Covid capital of the world and travel at the moment is a costly and stressful nightmare. Those reasons however are NOT the reason why I am stressed, let me explain something to you first. 

    I love travelling, I do get a little stressed at times but generally I go with the flow and I am happy. When the current Covid situation heightened I figured the best thing to do was to go with the flow, deal with any situations as and when, try to plan ahead and keep myself safe to the best of my abilities, there isn't much more I can do, go with the flow and don't panic. 

    Over the last week I have had 2 different friends contact me for a chat which is usually nice however on these occasions it wasn't, it was these two chats that stressed me out a lot. The chats where both pretty much along the same lines, a bit like this

Them "Are you still going to Florida?"
Me "as long as I am allowed then yes"

Them "Do you have travel insurance?" 
Me "Yes" 
obviously I do, what kind of idiot do they think I am?????

Them "What happens if it cancels"
Me "I don't know"

Them "What if you can't go"
Me "I don't know"

Them "What if you catch Covid"
Me "I don't know"

Them "What if you are stuck there?"
Me "I DON'T KNOW"

    And so on until my stress levels are raised to unacceptable levels. It turns out that I am not stressed by the travelling, I can deal with that, what I can't deal with is other people passing their own stresses on to me, I totally get people are concerned but surely they must realise that I have had 6 months to think about this and work things out. I can deal with my own stress but when other people push their own stress onto me I break, This is NOT how I wanted to start the new year. 

January 2nd dip

    On a happy note I have actually managed to deal with those stress levels by having a few little cold therapy adventures. It started on New Years day with my first Parkrun of the year which I did complete with no shirt on, I even had a friend join me in being shirtless, that was a great experience and long may it continue, the video of that parkrun can be seen here.  

January 2nd dip

    I have also managed two sea swims, yesterday I had to go wave dodging at Hayling which was very fun, and then today I met up with a new group of swimmers in Southsea which was really nice, it is always good to meet fellow swimmers. It is times like this that the cold therapy outings really come into their own and I really appreciate them and everyone around me who supports me. 

Rob x
January 3rd dip

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