Diary of a Rising Phoenixx (A Participant’s Story)

‘Spontaneity vs Planning it all vs Planning the Unknown’

I have a pretty big issue with being spontaneous – in the sense that I almost always hate it when people are spontaneous. I can’t understand why some people insist on just doing things without having any idea of what they’re gonna do; it could be that they like adventure, but I need more structure than that (most of the time). When I was in school, I knew people who would apparently just go to their friends’ homes without agreeing on it beforehand; I tended to stay inside, preferring to not leave the protective and familiar bubble my home offers me – since then I’ve grown and have become a bit more confident, but I still need at least a day or a few to get things settled in my head properly, so I know where and when I’m going, who I’m going to be with, and what will probably be happening. Maybe I can deal with meeting up with certain friends and just winging it, but for things/people that are not so familiar, I need to know.
I’ve had a friend call me an hour before they wanted to meet, knowing full well I hate it when people do that. On the other hand, I’ve had friends plan things with me a week in advance.
There are also occasions that are mostly planned, but I’m not really prepared for – which leads me to a group I joined a little while ago called ‘On Track’.
It was a few days after my first session with the Monday Club, that I headed to the job centre, a rather bad case of stress-induced nausea hitting me (but I dragged myself there anyway); this is an instance in which I knew about the details of the meeting, but I had no idea what we were going to talk about, so I started stressing. I wasn’t left waiting long, before being called into a room, the nervous fidgeting beginning almost immediately, and carrying through the whole time I was sat across the desk from the man I’d agreed to meet. We talked for a while – the very obvious subject of my anxiety coming up at some point – before he suggested I speak to a man from On Track (a group which I was told could help me get passed my anxiety to help get into work); I would have to wait a little while, but I knew I had no other plans for the day, so I stayed. Although my hands were subtly shaky, my anxiety levels had dropped noticeably by the time I spoke with the On Track man. Not long after that day’s events, I started emailing back and forth with my new On Track coach, and we agreed on a place and moment in time to meet.
The day came when I was meant to meet her. I was a bit nervous – as I always am when meeting new people – but not to the point where I felt sick; I had no idea what we would be talking about or if we would be leaving our initial meeting place (we didn’t), but I didn’t feel so ill. Maybe talking over the internet for a little while had helped, or maybe that day was just a less anxious day. We’ve met up a few times since then, so it has become a pretty familiar thing to do, making it easier to see her without worrying about it.