anxiety – Sidewalk Face

Too Much

April 12, 2022by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl8 Comments

I want to do too much.

I feel like I want to do many different things at every moment and no matter what I pick, I am berating myself for not picking the other thing. No choice can make me happy because I am always NOT attending to something important. Sometimes I gossip to myself about myself and I am not nice.

Of course, this makes me uncomfortable in the present moment. I want to leave this place that is so critical of my choices.

I usually pick something productive yet easy, like doing the dishes, and then I tell myself that when this little chore is done, we will be in better shape to do all the other stuff. I might listen to a podcast so I can’t hear the negativity.

When I am done with that task, I am surprised to find I still feel freaked out about how much stuff needs to get done.

I am telling myself a lie over and over. The lie is this: You will be happy when all the things are done. Do you know what it’s called when all the things are done?

RIP.

I am trying to stop doing this. I am trying to stop trying. I am experimenting with just being in the activity rather than accomplishing the activity. It’s really hard. That gossipy part of myself is always blathering on and distracting us. She is constantly narrating everything, categorizing everything, ranking everything and comparing everything. It’s so hard to shut her up. But if I succeed without the aid of someone else talking, there is a sense of relief.

A sense of just enough.

Relationships, Striving to Be Better

I Don’t Like This But It Seems Like It’s My Fault

December 9, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl8 Comments

My husband just told me that if we are on a plane together and something starts to go wrong, he is going to sit with someone else because I get too upset.*

I don’t like this at all, but it’s kind of on me, right? I need to calm down.

I am not good at being calm when a lot of unpleasant unknowns are coming at me.

My first reaction is to short circuit and yell. I start making it all about me. How dare reality impinge on my wellbeing like this?! Neither admirable nor attractive, I too would skitter away if possible.

On the positive side, I usually get my shit back together reasonably fast. I don’t stay in that state for hours on end. I burn bright and quick. Since I really want to be a source of strength and pleasure for those in my company, I try to tidy up the emotional mess soon after it appears. But I just can’t seem to figure out how to nip it in the bud.

I hate sharing this because all I seem to hear is meditation mediation meditation. I know! And I do! My goodness. That’s how I am able to right the ship. I am very mindful. Mindful enough to know I am an animal and when I get scared, that’s not the time to try and pet me. I have to have my little moment of pure shock.

Life is quite challenging. It’s very hard to be perfect. If you’re stoic, which is awesome on bumpy airplanes, you might not be the most fun. If you’re emotional, which is taxing, you might give the best hugs. If you’re resourceful and effective, you might seem too competent to empathize. If you’re a wreck, you might be exciting but unreliable. You just can’t do it all and be it all. I would like to, to be everything to everybody. But I can’t and I don’t and I’m not. Oh well.

But I think I will try to be one iota more contained. An iota a day keeps the husband not away.

*Just in case you are new here, my husband said this in jest, and it was well deserved. He would not actually abandon me on a plane or anywhere. He is a very nice man. I am glad he said it because it’s important to know when you’re at the boundary of too annoying to put up with. If someone cares enough to give you a signal, you can retreat a few steps back and just be moderately annoying.

Striving to Be Better

Responsibility Seesaw

May 4, 2021May 5, 2021by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-OwlLeave a Comment

A seesaw appears to be a binary. Either you’re up or down. Emotionally it’s easiest to imagine this as you’re happy or you’re unhappy. Stressed or not stressed. I am often stressed by responsibility so naturally I dream of relief. How wonderful it would be to roll the backpack of anxiety off my weary shoulders and shove it deep into the closet, not to be hoisted again until next season. I wish for this so often. I am delusionally imaging a world of equilibrium. I think if I am not stressed about too much to do, I will be in a stasis of happiness.

No. Stasis does not exist, it is merely the briefest moment of passing through the fulcrum from one state of anxiety to the next.

I noticed this last night. I was taking stock and feeling pretty darn good about my week’s accomplishments. I had managed to do so much! And the future was looking a little less hectic. It’s as if I had been stuck in the up position of the seesaw for a month by an elephant of labor who either refused to pump his thick legs up and down or who was just too large for it to be effective. But miraculously, he had shrunk in size and I was slowly floating down. Happiness is just on the other side! Here I come!

I felt total bliss as the board evened out, me and the now skinny elephant smiling across from each other, perfectly aligned, our eyes meeting in joyous anticipation.

How brief was that joy, how fleeting that sense of ease. The skinny elephant suddenly transformed into an emaciated rodent who flew up in the air as my terrified butt whacked the ground. Thrown from the game he scurried away, leaving me unable to go up again. What if I don’t get any more work? What if all the jobs dry up? What if I have nothing to do? All the anxiety was back, just a mirror image.

Too much or too little. Those are always the main course. The hoped-for sense of ease is a momentary movement in between.

I am glad I could see it so clearly. And the metaphor helps. Possibly the thing to do is get off the damn seesaw.

Illustrations by my brilliant husband, Andy Norman.