Something has changed in the last few weeks and I don’t really know what to think.
I’m…happy? But also VERY wary of happiness??
I’m eating well: tons of fruit, veggies, lean protein. I’m exercising, like, almost every fucking day whether it’s the circuit training I do at Orange Shoe or the walks I take with Ashwin. Sometimes I take two walks a day. I’m finally losing weight, little by little. I’m writing! I started a freelance writing course that I’m so far really loving and I published my first piece on Medium yesterday and as listicles go – true, they are kind of the dregs of the internet – I’m rather proud of it. I’m sleeping well. My skin is (mostly) clear. I have *energy*, which is the strangest feeling of all. (I still often nap when Ashwin naps, but not every day, and they aren’t depression naps!) I’m reading. I’m having fun with my son. I’m staying cleansed, exfoliated, and hydrated AF.
I don’t know if it’s superstition, cynicism, or your garden variety anxiety disorder, but when things are going this well, I feel very very nervous. Something is about to go terribly wrong. In therapy (I will never not want to make fun of myself after beginning a sentence like that) I’ve learned that anxiety is my lizard brain trying to protect me and keep me safe from danger. But there are really no predators to watch out for in the United States, circa 2021 (unless you count the unvaccinated! or the mass shooters! or the alligators! or the rapidly deteriorating planet!…) so my brain I guess has to come up with other threats to occupy itself. As it just did, without breaking a sweat.
Maybe part of it is just feeling weird about being 35 and approaching ~middle age~. I don’t want to get old. I mean, it’s always annoyed the shit out of me when people complain about aging – I always say “it’s better than the alternative!!” which is a glib way of saying “be happy you’re not dead”. I had a dream – nightmare, I guess – the other night that I was on a sinking ship and everyone was screaming and I was thinking “oh God this is really it oh my God I’m going to die this is actually going to happen what is going to happen what’s it going to feel like when will things just go black and how fucking terrifying is that”…and then I realized, as my head was underwater for a few seconds, that I hadn’t actually tried to swim. I brought my head up above water, breathed, and that’s when I woke up. Is there something profound there? Maybe. I don’t know.
I just don’t want to spend so much of my life worrying about death. That’s it. That’s probably the most intimate thing I’ve ever written here; I don’t like to talk about it OR write about it. But writing helps sometimes! So let’s give it a shot. Bow out now if you don’t want to hear about my history of death anxiety!!
When I was in elementary school, my parents went away for a weekend once and I stayed at my best friend’s house for a few days. We usually watched the TGIF lineup, but maybe it wasn’t Friday, because we watched Touched by an Angel instead. Remember that show? This episode’s premise was basically the storyline of that song “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam – the song that made me a passionate hater of the band until I met V. (I’m still not, like, a fan but they’re okay. The song still isn’t.) It’s about some high school sweethearts who get into a car accident and the girl dies. Rock n roll!!! Anyway – I was traumatized by it. My parents spent so much time and energy sheltering me from “bad” TV and movies and music, and the thing that damaged me the most was this episode of Touched by a fucking Angel. I didn’t want to let my parents out of my sight for months. I wanted to go on every errand, every trip, because they wouldn’t get into an accident if I was there (so my thinking went).
Eventually I got over it – I guess just by becoming a teenager and all the self-absorption that comes along with that. And then for years and years I’d almost never think about death. It didn’t come up. I was lucky. In 2011-2012, we lost several family members in quick succession and while that was incredibly shitty and sad and depressing, it didn’t spur a return of my own specific death anxiety. Then in 2015, V and I started trying to conceive, and I gradually went off all of my depression and anxiety medications, which turned out to be a horrific mistake. I spent most of that summer crying. There were multiple days I left work early feigning illness after crying in the bathroom and then cried some more on the bus going home. Death was suddenly all I could think about. And I mean ALL. By the fall, I was back on the meds and slowly getting better. But it’s never completely gone away since then. I’m working on it in therapy.
Oof, that was a lot. And there’s oh so much more where that came from, but that’s for me and Dr. Sarah Byer to sort through. I guess I just wrote all this to…put it in perspective? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll write more about it some other time, or maybe I won’t. I don’t know if anyone relates or is at all interested.
Also: if you ever try to talk to me about any of this, I will change the subject to the Packers or my cat or something.
What I’m Reading:
I just finished Ace of Spades, which was described in reviews as “Get Out meets Gossip Girl”, which pretty much sold me, and that is accurate! It was good, entertaining, didn’t demand much from me.
What I’m Watching:
V and I have finished our Sex and the City rewatch but have yet to tackle the two movies. We’ve now begun a Veep rewatch. We binged the second season of Never Have I Ever in like two days, it was so so so good. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan FOREVER.
What I’m Listening to:
Still a lot of Olivia Rodrigo, but also a lot of random ’90s.
What I’m Looking Forward to:
Traveling to Detroit this week to visit family and show off this guy:
Sconnie Molly 