Vacation and OCD It wants to come along

I'm getting ready to go on vacation. I know I am not alone in having my OCD get more active before travel to somewhere unfamiliar and away from routine. My husband said I am dramatically better than in past years, and he's right. Of course my OCD jumps all over this with, "Well, he just jinxed you. Can you live up to the pressure to be sane???" But I do know that in the past vacation was like a gauntlet of anxiety, with a big dose of anticipatory anxiety in the form of hypersensitivity to body symptoms, fears of getting a bladder infection, difficulty deciding what to pack, unplugging everything in the house, fear of dying while away.

This year though, although these same kinds of thoughts have occurred, I haven't latched onto them, and wrestled with them until I was a sweaty mess. I used to compulsively research vacations in order to try and get some kind of control, but I am learning that part of vacation is making it up as we go, and as daunting as my OCD finds anything spontaneous, I am making this an exposure, to have a good time dammit. . .OCD also came in the form of "am I enjoying this trip enough? Did I experience that right?" along with fear of not choosing to do the right activities at the right times, so again, big exposure time here, because the flashes of freedom, fun and joy I've had when I stay in the present moment are lighting the way.