My second trip to Colorado in as many weeks. I’m becoming a real Coloradan. Put me in a cowboy hat. Put me on a horse. Point me to the mountains.
No, don’t do any of those things. But do think of me fondly as I frolic in the Coloradan mountains. And by frolic in the mountains, I mean attend the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. AERA is the largest annual gathering of folks in my field. In a word, it’s overwhelming.
I try to avoid AERA when I can. I’ve averaged going every other year or so. This is one of those years. Denver, here I come.
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My most overwhelming experience with AERA was in Toronto. I rented a car and drove there from State College. This would have been in 2019. It was a five-hour drive. I made it through upstate New York with ease. I crossed the Canadian border and my cell phone service went haywire. I couldn’t get directions to my hotel on my phone. I ended up divining my way to the hotel by sense of smell. Sense of sight. Divine intervention. I don’t know how I got there.
I spent the week in downtown Toronto. I walked back and forth from my hotel to the conference center. I ran into everybody that I know in the field of education. I was surrounded by people and noise and sound. If I were a cat, I would have scratched somebody’s face off. Very over-stimulated.
One afternoon, I was walking back from a session, and I felt something in my chest. I had no idea what that something was, so I figured I was having a heart attack. I went back to my hotel room, crawled under the covers, and watched NBA basketball for hours. It was very sad.
Years later, I’ve come to realize that I didn’t die of a heart attack in 2019. In fact, kind reader, I think what I had was something I’ve often had without realizing I’ve had them: Anxiety attacks.
I asked my therapist if he thought I’d ever had a panic attack a few months ago. He laughed at me and told me every time I’ve freaked out about my health enough to go to the doctor is the result of an anxiety attack. The crushing realization hit me. I am, in fact, an anxious little man. And sometimes that shows up in my body. Who knew?
I bring all of this up because I associate AERA with anxiety attacks.
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I don’t feel anxious about going to AERA this year. I’ll enjoy a few days on my own in Denver. Get some work done. Gaze at the mountains in the distance. Of course I’ll miss my wife and boys, but I’ll also enjoy a little solitude. Solitude is good for me. I’m not a total hermit, just a partial one.
Anxiety is what anxiety is. It’ll be with me, I suppose, so long as it is with me. Nothing to be done about it, other than to move with it. Acknowledge it and be about my day. I’m okay with that.
The self-help mantra I’ve been muttering to myself is very simple. I’m okay and I’m not okay and that’s okay. This simple realization remains true to me as another AERA approaches. As the end of another semester approaches. As anxiety ebbs and flows in this humble body. I’m okay and I’m not okay and that’s okay. And I’m okay with that. Say that seventeen times fast.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 