The challenge for the trip was that I needed to be able to touch pretty much anything at my parents' house, my grandma's house, my in-laws house, etc. I also ended up touching public doors in the small town my parents live in. It seemed like a good place to start. In a town of 1,500, I'm not nearly as scared as I am in Nashville (though I'm still plenty scared.) I managed this really well. I touched doors in one of the slightly bigger towns in South Dakota too...they have about 15,000 people so that was a real jump up. We had a couple of things we really had to talk through, but overall, I did great. And coming off of our last challenge (going places and coming home, not changing my clothes and sitting on the couch and stuff) we even went to a movie! I haven't been to a movie without showering afterwards for 2 years. And I did it this time!
It's really hard to explain how big these victories are. The fact that I now put toothpaste directly onto my toothbrush feels like an exciting achievement every time I do it. One afternoon in South Dakota that involved hugs and board games and a dining table, I said to Dave, "Do you know how many times I would have hand sanitized for this afternoon at Christmas?" I counted that there were at least 8 times that I would have reached for that little bottle and I didn't this time.
Probably the weirdest thing about all of this is that I feel like each time I do something the normal way, it should be a big deal. People should be questioning me or there should be a big fanfare or at least I should go into a full on panic attack. But instead, once I've made the commitment to go after a trigger, and especially after doing it for a bit, the normalcy just slips quietly in. I don't think this means I could have reached this point at any time these past two years. Something in the last two months has certainly changed. I know a piece of it is medicine, but I think there have also been changes in my spirit and in my brain. I don't really need to pinpoint it. I'm just glad that things aligned and we've been able to go after these challenges. And succeed.
