This morning I woke up with a stranger in my bed. I haven’t seen the crazy lady in months — really, for years. But this morning she took up residence in my head, making sure I knew that she thought this trip to Egypt was a really bad idea. She’s the one who makes my heart pound and my stomach churn as she whispers all the things that could possibly go wrong.

I can usually drive her away by being rude — telling her to go away, that she’s not welcome here, but she ignored me, deciding she wanted to come along for the ride. At the airport she kept looking for excuses for me to stay home. There was a mixup with Camille’s ticket and as Josh spent 45 minutes trying to check in, she kept reminding me that this was the perfect opportunity to leap to safety. Take the baby, head home, and crawl back into bed while the boys went on without me. I told her she was being ridiculous.

And then, when it turned out that we were going to have to run to make our flight, she said it was a sign that I shouldn’t be going. She tried to draw a line in the sand and say if we missed the flight, that I should give up, call it quits and go home. Normally I can get rid of her on my own, but today I called in reinforcements. Half of a yellow pill and 30 minutes later she was sufficiently muffled.

Intellectually I knew I was fine, but it was sort of a shock to see her again after all this time. I know it’s because I’ve been under a lot of stress lately with thinking about another move in 2 1/2 months to a new country, Josh has been traveling, juggling all my kids who seem particularly needy lately (probably because they’re stressed too). She likes to sneak in unnoticed when I’m preoccupied with other things and then she pops out with a “Surprise!” and tries to throw the kind of party that nightmares are made of.

But, since I’m able to write this while we’re flying over Oman and UAE, I’d say she’s been mostly disarmed this morning. Now I just have to leave her behind in the Abu Dhabi airport. Maybe I’ll buy her a cappuccino at Costa Coffee and sneak away to our next flight while she’s not looking.

Thou O Lord, are a shield about me. You’re my glory, you’re the lifter of my head. Psalm 3:3