What was I thinking?

It's 3:30 am and I woke up in a cold sweat (yeah it's a hot night here but...) thinking of all the little details that I haven't quite wrapped up. Pick up..., get a box for..., pay some last minute..., make sure all addresses are..., clean up..., did I pack the... My mind is an evil friend right now but I'm more upset with with the bladder that woke me up and told my brain to boot up and WORRY, about anything and everything. So here I sit alone and scared and wondering what the hell it was that drove me to the conclusion that I needed to travel (and not for the last time either I have a feeling). Not to travel like most 44 year old guys; the trip to Europe staying at some lovely pensione here and quaint B and B there, visiting the Louvre, Picadilly Square, Las Ramblas. Although I've seen those things and loved them, I felt like this trip was more of an inward journey, a quest for something meaningful, a desire to know more of myself through struggle...what my family likes to call my second mid-life crisis. No, I have to ride my bike through equatorial heat and insane traffic patterns (fighting the depression/suicidal thoughts that are common side effects of the particular anti-malarial that I'll be taking) to find whatever it is I am and we all are looking for.
Tonight however the Euro dream sounds sweet and romantic and, well, clean. I am stressing about the unknown and all the details of just how much unknown there is out there. And as I sit here in the dark pre-dawn hours I'm thinking the whole idea is really stupid and how I don't really want to go after all and how everyone IS right...it IS really dangerous and lots of bad things can happen and I will get sick and I will be alone and...and that is the reason most people don't go. Fear. Sure I'm scared. I'm scared of a lot in this world and I've been scared my whole life. My mind can mess up any situation and focus on the worst of the worst. Hell, we're trained to. It's how we've survived. Don't run out into the street, don't trust strangers, don't get stuck out in the dark. Bad things can happen to people and do all the time. I'm just so tired of living like they might happen to me and if I buy enough insurance somehow they won't. Security is a thin veil that doesn't exist. Eighteen years of ER nursing has taught me that. Like somehow if I don't go on this trip I'll be safer and my life will be better.
Well, I'm glad we've had this little chat. I feel a bit better now and am somehow emboldened. But maybe it's just fatigue...off to sleep.