I had a panic attack on the customs line at Aruba airport before our flight home.

But before we get there, let’s back up to earlier that morning.

On our final day on our seven-day trip to Aruba, my husband and I woke up around 7 and had breakfast out on the balcony of our room. I ate half of my buttered roll before turning the roll over and discovering little blue speckles of mold.

Cue the OCD, health anxiety, panic spiral made worse by the fact that we were preparing for a four-hour flight later in the day.

My husband, who prepared the buttered roll, was extremely apologetic for not inspecting the roll before buttering it. But, apologies notwithstanding, I still laid on the couch googling, “What happens when you eat mold?” Google said death, as google does. Eventually I found a reddit post with enough degenerates in the comments section who made me feel confident that I would be fine.

I also took half of a Xanax. So, that might have helped quiet the spiraling thoughts.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch. We waited in the lobby of the Marriott with my husband’s family until it was time for us to go to the airport.

We said our goodbyes, dropped off our rental car, and printed our boarding passes. Luck continued to be on our side as we made it through the passport reader and security with ease. Walking past the Sbarro’s and duty-free shops, I was feeling good, if not warm.

And then we hit the room for customs.

The line was the equivalent of a line for a ride at Disney, but instead of gaining entrance to Space Mountain, the payoff was being able to go home. Much higher stakes. We had at least an hour or so wait ahead of us, and whatever air conditioning they had going wasn’t doing much to combat the amount of bodies in the enclosed space.

Claustrophobia set in when we’d made it to the midway point. We had to stay on the line or else we wouldn’t be able to get on the plane. We didn’t have any water because we had to throw away our water bottles before getting on line for security, and we didn’t think to buy new ones before getting on line for customs. And I hadn’t eaten anything since the moldy buttered roll at 7am.

The adrenaline shot down my legs. My heart raced. I needed to get off the line NOW.

I need to sit down. I’m going to pass out. I’m going to have a heart attack. If I get off the line, I won’t be able to get home, so I HAVE TO STAY ON LINE. I’M STUCK.

I closed my eyes and breathed. And told myself that I would be okay. I shook out my hands and swayed, trying to move the feelings through my body. Eventually my body calmed down enough. We got through the customs line and got pizza once we got to the gates. But my body refused to cool down.

I kept body checking, sticking my fingertips against my neck to feel my heart race, which made my mind race, which made me wonder, “How long can a heart race before it gives out?”

The gate was no cooler than the customs room. And I couldn’t get out of my stuck thoughts. I took another half of a Xanax because I didn’t know what else to do. I even thought about asking the cashier at the little souvenir shop if she had scissors so I could cut my leggings into shorts. I was desperate for some sort of relief.

During this time, my husband was online at the Quiznos getting us a sandwich for the plane. He returned holding a cold bottle of water that I placed on the back of my neck, on my forehead, on my vagus nerve.

The cold helped. The Xanax helped.

They called our boarding group, and by some grace of the universe the plane was cool. It felt like a reprieve. I could have cried from the relief.

The flight was without incident. I watched Abbott Elementary. Zero anxiety. And all because the air conditioning was doing its job really well.

I don’t know how to make peace with heat. After the summer of 2015 when my friend, Sparkle, and I spent a month without fans or air conditioning in an apartment in Barcelona, my body has never been the same.

I’ve been managing anxiety for a decade now, most recently increasing my dose of Zoloft after a particularly challenging summer, and those thought spirals get me every time because what if this is THE time?

And it’s easy to feel like the panic attack at customs was a failure on my part somehow. That I’m going backwards. That I’m not doing enough to heal my anxiety.

But healing isn’t linear. And some seasons are easier than others. This is just a tough season.

I’ll make it through. Accepting that is a start.