My Anxiety Files - Waiting For The Other Shoe

Meet my anxiety.  He's the law-talkin' guy.

             I am home today finishing the computer part of my job.  I am a little hungry, but not too much.  I finished some decaf, and now I am drinking ice water. I’m getting paid tomorrow, the money is okay, it’s not too hot, I feel okay, and all my laundry is done.  All that aside, there is a sensation in the bottom of my spine that to breathe a sigh of relief would spell disaster for everything.  I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Here’s the thing:  I feel pretty good.  It’s true.  We are climbing out of a financial hole caused by a few crappy years, are kids are in good health and heading in a good direction, and summer is giving way to fall.  I like my job, I’m in charge, I have a handle on some things.  My wife will soon be making more money and she is in good spirits.  My house is in good shape and I am thankful.

            But, I am so afraid to feel good about anything because of that other shoe.  Oh mercy, when will the bad thing happen?  When will the disaster happen that not only puts life into some kind of balance that’s completely constructed in my mind, but inevitably has to materialize because I had the nerve to feel good about my life for a few hours?

            People with anxiety can’t help but internalize the events around them.  Accidents and unforeseen tragedies can’t just happen due to the randomness of the universe.  I must have willed it to happen.  I felt like life was okay, and that somehow was interpreted as thumbing my nose to the infinite wisdom of the universe or God or Buddha or whomever you feel would care about such things. The universe, in turn, created a disaster for me just to teach me a lesson.  So, to protect myself, I won’t feel good about anything.  That way, I won’t risk bad stuff happening.  That’s how it works, right? Life itself is a jack in the box, and every day we turn the crank, waiting for a stupid clown to pop out and scare the piss out of us.  (By the way, what a fucked up toy that was…)

            Are you thinking to yourself: Isn’t that a crappy way to live…?  You’re right.  It is a crappy way to live.  The other shoe is why so many people can’t feel joy.  It is as ingrained in our brains as fight or flight and peaches are sweet and delicious.  It is a defense mechanism that a lot of us spend our lives dismantling. Living in the moment, breathing, mindfulness are exercises to deconstruct that other shoe. Of course, others don’t realize it is a problem.  Others build entire thought processes and belief systems around fear of the inevitable doom around the corner.  I don’t want to live like that.  I’d rather enjoy all of the days between now and the possible day everything goes to hell, than stay in fear of that day for my life.

            But I have that feeling, though.  My anxiety just eats it up.  You feel fine, but what about that mole?  Should you get it checked out?  Your car is fixed and is running again, but what if something else happens this week?  Do you have the money? Is that person mad at me? It is comical how much my brain looks for potential flaws and pitfalls, even when the evidence doesn’t support a damn thing.  My anxiety is a low-rent lawyer with no legitimate case.  My anxiety is Lionel Hutz.

            You know that archaic and trite phase that is so overused yet is secretly some of the best advice in the world: Take it one day at a time?  My only advice to deal with the other shoe is a version of that.  Every time you feel that sense of doom lurking, don’t try to destroy it completely.  It’s too hard to do on your own.  Just put it off one day.  “I’ll feel like this tomorrow.  I’m not going to entertain this thought until tomorrow.”  Then, the next day, repeat the process. It’s as if procrastination can finally work in our favor.  Plus, you may get to feel the joy you’ve earned in your life.

Writing About Writing (This One’s About Writing)

Are you gonna write about it, or just take it in?

So I accidentally deleted all my blog stuff.  I had 5 or 6 finished pieces in there.  The sad part is, I really didn’t care.  I shrugged my shoulders and chalked it up to being a careless doofus.   It was a fair amount of work and editing, about 4 to 5 thousand words or so, but something in me just treated it like discovering a new stain on an old shirt I was ready to throw out anyway.

            I’ve been writing since 1989.  I’ve has spurts where I wrote every day, and droughts where I avoided it for three months.  I always came back. I always come back.  I do not know why.  Writing is not very rewarding.  I’ve used it for two reasons.  First, on a personal level, it helped many times when I needed to extract the evil ooze out of my brain and make sense of it on paper.  I used it instead of weeping or curling into a ball in the corner.  It helped some, and it hurt some, too.  Writing time should be paused occasionally for human contact and reaching out to others for help.  But that was my deal.  I bled it dry.  That use, the diary and confessional part of journal writing, really doesn’t work for me anymore.

            The other reason is my favorite.  I am an idea generator.  I wrote before that it is in the search of The Big Idea that I sit down and type all the time…alone…sitting…for free.  I still get the ideas and they still make me happy.  I can write about anything on my mind, as long as I believe I am bringing something new to the argument or observation.  That’s what this blog is.  I get nothing from it other than a sense of accomplishment.  Even that is pretty fleeting.  I get about a dozen views per post, sometimes less than five.  Sometimes I feel that I really nailed something and I put a lot of extra time in the piece to make it funny or more clear, and it’s a whiff.  Essentially nobody reads it.

            I’m a smart guy.   If no one is reading your stuff after 20 years, there are only a few options you can settle on.  The first is the biggest culprit.  I don’t promote my writing or myself.   I tried to get things published, but I quit after it was rejected.  That is on me.  I don’t have the thick skin required.  Then there are the more stinging realizations.  I may very well suck, and/or no one is buying what I’m selling. 

            I can accept it if I suck.  I know when I’ve put it out there and really tried hard to hone and edit and get it right.  If my best isn’t very good, I can still say I tried.  But to accept that people just aren’t into what I writing about is a lot tougher to swallow.  It jabs my in the ribs and triggers my deepest insecurities; and I’m right back to being a boney little kid with cowlicks that no one paid attention to.  Maybe I’m too late with my stories and observations.  Somebody already wrote about that and I’m late to the party.  It could be that I’m trite and passé and naïve and I just don’t know it.  Or, maybe nobody gives a shit at all.

            If I had one of my dream time machines and was able to go back in time to correct this, I would show up in 1989 right after I read The Catcher In The Rye.  I would tell myself this:  “I know you have a lot to say, and you are ready to start writing about everything that comes to mind every day, but practice the guitar instead.  You won’t be famous, you won’t be rich, but you’ll be able to express yourself and you’ll get to be with other people and have fun.  Writing is lonely.”  Then I’d buy some Apple stock and get the hell out of there.

           Now I have to get back to filling a new file up with stuff.