Tag: sometimes I’m dumb

The Universe Gave Me a Sign To Cut My Own Hair and Other Questionable Ways I Make Decisions

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The last time I was scheduled to have a hair appointment, my stylist had an emergency. She works out of her home, so it wasn’t like another stylist could step in and help me out. I decided to wait to see what was going on and then see about rescheduling.

Only I never rescheduled.

I decided that this was a sign from the Universe to shave my head.

Okay, not exactly. But pretty close.

Here’s the thing. The abruptness of this hair appointment cancellation unfortunately played right into an annoying, elevated period of anxiety. So while I was battling the brain gremlins about whether or not my stylist would even want me to reschedule, another part of me -the goblin part- told me that this was a sign from the Universe to take matters into my own hands.

Given my indecision about rescheduling, it was only natural that I would start watching YouTube videos about cutting my own hair. Most of them were too complicated and required me to buy razors and sheers and that’s more commitment than I’m willing to do. But one only required clippers and scissors, both of which I have. And I found the style to be quite fetching. It’s got a punk vibe to it and I’ve been craving that lately.

Well, obviously, this was meant to be. Because if my stylist hadn’t cancelled, then I wouldn’t be in a dither about rescheduling, and my hair wouldn’t be driving me crazy to the point that I’m so seriously considering cutting my own hair that I’m looking at how-to videos on how to do it.

So, on a Saturday after work, I shaved my head, leaving the top long. It took a couple of days for me to convince my hair to do the thing, but it’s worked out well so far.

Thank you, Universe.

Okay, do I really believe in signs from the Universe? Yeah, sometimes. I don’t necessarily believe in God, but I do believe in the Universe, and the Universe has a sense of humor. And I do believe the Universe loves us and knows that we’re dumbasses and tries to help us out on occasion.

I’ll take all the help I can get.

To be honest, the fear of failure that has been instilled in me from a young age has resulted in me being afraid to choose wrong. That bit of unknown causes me to balk. It freezes me sometimes and makes it difficult for me to make a damn decision. In those instances, I need some help.

That’s where the Universe comes in.

Or tarot cards.

I know what you’re thinking. Tarot cards can’t tell the future. Good news! I’m not asking them to. I’m asking them to give me some clarity on whatever situation is causing me difficultly. Interpreting the cards with that focus in mind helps shake my brain loose from whatever has it stuck. Because most of the time, I know the decision I have to make. This is a roundabout way to arrive at the destination, but I get there nonetheless.

It’s not quite flipping a coin, but I rarely have a coin on me, so.

There are times when I’m a very decisive person. When there’s no doubt in my head about the choice I should make.

And then there are times when I look for a sign from the Universe and I get it in a certain song that’s on the radio when I start the car.

And then I shave my head.

You’d be surprised how often it works out for me.

I Should Take My Own Advice–But I’ll Do No Such Thing

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been working very hard to reform my exercise habits. I finally got myself into the rhythm of doing two short workouts a day: a harder one in the morning and then a kinder one after after work. Doing this five days a week, that’s ten workouts. I’d been able to keep this up for a good six weeks before I hit a real wall.

I’d been feeling run down for several days. Maybe it was the last gasp summer weather change (we went from the 70’s to the 90’s down to the 60’s in a span of a week); maybe it was the PMS fatigue that has been known to whip my ass on occasion; maybe it was the fact that I’d been busting my ass on multiple projects and it finally caught up with me. Whatever the cause, my ass was dragging and if you know me at all, you know the size of my ass is considerable, which means the drag was, too.

I got up on that Wednesday morning feeling like I hadn’t slept even though my sleep had been decent. In that moment of meh weakness, I decided that I was going to take at the very least the morning workout off. My body was aching for rest and I decided to listen to it for once.

Cue the guilt and self-loathing.

I grew up with parents who despised laziness. The only thing on par with being lazy was being selfish or possibly murder (but I think laziness and selfishness would have beat murder out simply because I had DONE something instead of watch TV and not share with my sister). So I grew up to believe that any kind of rest I gave myself was laziness and that simply isn’t allowed. Please understand that this does not apply to anyone else –only me. Other people are allowed to listen to their bodies and give themselves the rest they require. I’ll even give them that very advice.

But I loathe to take it for myself.

I have a whole day during the week which I have designated for “self-care” and that is Sunday. I do as little as possible on Sundays. I schedule no work, put no expectations on myself, don’t even get dressed. Sundays (unless absolutely unavoidable) I’m just allowed to exist.

It took me years to get to that point. I spent years convincing myself it was okay to take one day a week off. And I admit that it’s done wonders for my existence.

But the work on deprogramming myself continues.

Is it lazy for me to take a day off of physical activity when my body demands it? Even with my Sunday off? Will one day off to honor myself totally ruin my exercise habit that I’ve worked so hard to re-establish? Will I immediately gain 100 pounds by not exercising on one day that I’m supposed to?

The answer to all of these things is obviously no. And logically I know that.

Illogically, I’m trying to tell myself that I can salvage it if I do two workouts after work (I’ve done that before), no matter how tired I am.

Imagine my surprise when I don’t. When I come home from work and choose to rest. Which is what I did on that particular occasion.

Imagine my even bigger surprise when I didn’t try to make up the workouts later in the week. I just…missed those workouts. And nothing of consequence happened. I let my body rest and ended up feeling better as a result and didn’t punish myself.

Maybe I should take my own advice a little more often.

The Greatest Mystery of My Life–Solved!

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I have just recently solved probably the greatest mystery of my life and since this is my life, it was of course a ridiculous one.

How did I get Styx Extended Versions Live on my iTunes?

Here’s the thing, I like music. When I say I like music, I mean I like all kinds and as such I have a sizeable, bizarre collection of it. And since I had internet access during the Napster/Limewire/Kazaa days, I have a lot of songs that I randomly acquired (and not all of them labeled correctly). These were also the days of ripping/burning CDs. I have a ton of music that I not only ripped from CDs I own, but also CDs burned for me by my friends (those were the days). I also have songs randomly acquired from my friends posting the tunes on LiveJournal.

What I’m saying is that even though I have a whole lot of music, I know where most of it has come from.

And I’ve managed to keep most of it through the years despite numerous hard drive failures and computer crashes. I have literally transferred songs from my dying desktops to USBs to new laptops. I will go above and beyond to keep my music. I don’t trust iTunes to save it for me.

Prior to my trip to Seattle back in 2017, I decided to make a massive playlist for the trip. That way I could load that one playlist and my pacifier shows onto my iPod (yes, I’m old and still don’t put music or media on my phone) and be set for the 4+ hour flight from O’Hare to the Seattle and back. My flight anxiety stems from being locked in a metal tube with too many other humans rather than any fear that the plane might crash. If I plug myself in to my music or my shows and try not to think about peeing in the tiny bathroom, I can manage. At the time, those 4+ hour legs were the longest flights I’d ever taken and I was understandably concerned. I wanted to be prepared.

So, I created the Why Not? playlist. It’s just the broadest sampling of my weirdo collection of music. I’ve got everything from 1920s swing jazz to 50s country to 60s pop to 70s Southern rock to 80s synth to 90s alt to 00’s hard rock to 10s dance and everything in between. It’s a good time.

However, when I first put this playlist together, going through my catalogue of songs, I ran into something I couldn’t explain.

Styx Extended Versions Live.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t mad about it. I like Styx. I just could not for the life of me remember how I ended up with it in my collection. I know I didn’t buy it because for all my love of music, my CD collection is rather paltry compared to other folks my age (or at least what their collections might have looked like during the heyday since I can’t say that anyone my age still has their CDs) and even though I like Styx, I couldn’t see myself spending money on one of their CDs. And I was pretty sure nobody gave me the CD because I know I didn’t have it in my pitiful collection and no one I was running with at the time would have gifted it to me.

I was sure I didn’t download it off of iTunes because again, not the thing I would have spent money on and I almost never download complete albums anyway.

So, that left my Dad’s CD collection, which is surprisingly bigger than mine. Probably because his car actually had a CD player and I don’t think a single car I’ve owned ever did. I ripped a big chunk of his collection (mostly his country and Southern rock stuff), but for the life of me I could not remember him ever listening to Styx, let alone owning one of their CDs. There was also the matter of not finding a Styx CD in his collection in his Jeep which is where all of his CDs live.

For years, I had no idea where the hell this Styx album came from or how I came to possess it in my digital music collection.

And then recently, I had to go look for my CDs. Yes. I still have them.

My Dad had cleaned out the pie safe where they’d been kept and ended up putting them down in the basement with a bunch of other unused items. As I was rooting through the box he’d stored them in, I came across Styx.

I don’t know why it’s not with the rest of my dad’s CDs (my guess is that it’s related to an ex-ladyfriend because I highly doubt it was one of the CDs my grandpa had, which are also down there) and I don’t remember ripping it, but I suppose I must have. After all, I do have the whole album and no other explanation about how I acquired it.

So, I’ll go with this logical conclusion.

Mystery solved.

I Am Not Flirting With You

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I saw a tweet the other day (that I failed to screencap) that said something to the effect of, “I’m not flirting with you. I’m just hot and talking.” And on a level I could relate to that tweet. Not the hot part, of course. The not flirting with you part.

Because I can assure you that I’m never flirting with anyone, ever. Even if I’m attracted to you, I’m not intentionally flirting with you.

I study many languages, but flirting is one I do not speak. I don’t know a single word. There are people who can weave that flattery and charm and innuendo and whatever else it is into conversations effortlessly. I can’t even attempt this. I’ve tried. I’ve also conveniently erased those times from my memory because they were so awkward and cringe-worthy. If you put me on a plank over a tank full of alligators and told me the only way I was getting out alive was if I successfully flirted my way out of that situation, I’d go ahead and jump. I have no game. None. Non-existent.

However, I am frequently assumed to be flirting with people even when I’m not. This is most notable with men who panic that a fat girl might be hitting on them. Meanwhile, I’m oblivious because I think we’re just having a conversation, maybe joking around. Under no circumstance am I actively flirting. As we’ve discussed, I have no skill there.

What I’m doing -and what I’m good at- is bantering. I’m quick with a joke or an insult, I know a lot of random stuff, and my mind is just dirty enough that I can come up with an appropriate innuendo or two. Every conversation with me has the potential to be a comedy routine if I’m feeling it. I’m a natural.

People mistake this for flirting. It’s wild. I know that there are some similarities. But I can assure that I’m not trying to seduce you.

I’m trying to entertain you. It’s my defense mechanism.

If I’m entertaining you, then you might not notice that my anxiety is raging and that I feel incredibly awkward, that I AM incredibly awkward, that I know I don’t quite fit in, that my introvert ass is plotting a socially acceptable exit. If you think I’m funny, you won’t notice I’m weird.

You gotta get to know me better before I ease you into my weird .

And by then my banter stops being a defense mechanism and becomes just my natural conversational skills. You’ll never notice the difference.

I’m told that what I really am is a natural flirt. That’s why I don’t notice what I’m doing. But I think it’s the other way around. I think everyone else doesn’t notice what I’m doing.

So, don’t panic. I’m not flirting with you.

*Obvious customer service related aside: I am definitely not flirting with you when I am at work. My job is to be professional and courteous. I am paid to indulge your presence to a certain extent. I do not want your body or your phone number.

That Hardcore Work Ethic

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Last week I had to call off of work.

Somehow, in my sleep, probably due to being over 40, I threw my back out.

Now, here’s the thing. Prior to breast reduction surgery, my back was rarely ever in. However, when it would go out, it was always my lower back and I was so used to it that I could cope. I rarely have issues with my upper back. So I was wholly unprepared to sit up in bed last Thursday morning and quickly realize that I could not sit up straight. The only way I could be upright was if I hunched over.

This made standing -and walking- a real challenge.

My first thought was “Holy shit, this is really fucking problematic.”

My second thought was “How am I supposed to work like this?”

Because of course I wouldn’t think about calling in. Not me. That’s not what I do. Work sick. Work hurt. Don’t complain. Just get the work done. (Okay, I often get the work done while complaining, but still.) Be reliable. Until last Thursday, I hadn’t called off a job since the mid-aughts. I might have left early a couple of times, but I always went. Bad ass sinus infections, sprained ankles, bad ass sinus headaches, stress fractures, colds, jammed elbows, the flu, patellar tendonitis, I showed up.

And last Thursday, I didn’t.

You would think that being unable to stand up unless I was hunched over, struggling to walk, unable to lift either one of my arms above my head, unable to carry anything at all in my left hand, unable to sit up unless I was hunched over…all things I have to do at my job would be a clue that I needed to call off. The thought of shelving anything was ridiculous. I’d be limited to maybe two shelves that I could reach and I’d only be able to carry one book at a time and I’d be moving slower than a snail out of slime while looking like Lon Chaney and making the most unsettling noises. At that point, I had no idea how I was even going shower or get dressed, let alone work.

And yet!

I still tried to figure out how to make it work. Or at least how to make my back work enough that I could power through and get by with my library partner in crime picking up my slack (which she would totally do without hesitation or complaint because she is the best). I laid on flat on the floor and did an assortment of stretches before I finally conceded that I wasn’t going to be able to work.

And even then when I contacted my boss, I told her that I was going to keep trying to get my back to be work ready before it was time for my shift.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t. I spent most of the day in bed. My back gradually improved which just added on to the guilt I already felt about calling in.

I could have gone to work.

That’s why I’m writing about this. It’s not me bragging about how bad ass I am because I can work no matter what and it took extreme pain to the point of being unable to stand to knock me down. It’s me explaining the absolutely bonkers way my brain is wired to feel guilty about calling off when I legitimately need to call off of work.

I feel like I’m letting everyone I work with down by calling off. I feel like everyone feels like I’m faking if I call off.

I feel like there is no legitimate reason for me to call off.

Even when there absolutely is.

I may have spent the day feeling guilty, but I also spent it resting and at least the latter helped my back feel better.

Sending Out Good Writerly Vibes Into the Universe

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Last month I submitted two pieces to two different contests. One was a 500 word story for a 500 word story contest. I revised a flash fiction piece I’d written during NaNo called “Haunted House”. It was originally over 1,000 words and kind of garbage. I cut it in half and I think that made a better story out of it.

The other piece was a poem that I submitted to Writer’s Digest’s Annual Story Competition. I’ve submitted all sorts of pieces to this contest over the years and I’ve place twice: 10th for genre short story and 5th for script. I’m really looking to reclaim my glory of placing second in a state poetry contest back when I was a sophomore in high school.

I wanted to submit an essay for this contest (it has a variety of categories), but it just didn’t work out for me. That’s something I need more practice on.

I was also going to submit a non-genre short story to another short story contest, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I think the story is fine, but I just have no confidence in my non-genre stories. I’m not a literary writer by any means and my few journeys into that territory have been less than stellar. That story -while not bad in my opinion- will never see the light of day.

To be honest, I don’t have the highest of hopes for either of my entries. I like them both and I think they’re good, but I’m not sure that they’re good enough, you know? But winning wasn’t the main point of me submitting to those contests anyway (thought it would be super swell if I did, don’t get me wrong).

I did it to cultivate good writerly vibes and to send those vibes out into the Universe.

I know how stupid that sounds. But as someone who’s been struggling to write consistently, let alone anything of quality, submitting something -anything- to anywhere is an act of defiance against the issues I’ve had. It’s an offering to the writer gods to show them that I’m still serious about this business, even though I haven’t been as enthusiastic or productive as I’ve been in the past.

It’s about putting those good vibes that I cultivate when I’m working on a piece and I hit that sweet spot groove that I yearn for out into the world and hope that I’m repaid in kind.

It’s an act of faith, in a way. That if I can submit something I’ve written to a contest today, then I can submit something else to an anthology or a magazine tomorrow. It’s a reminder to myself and to the Universe that I’m still game for this even on the days that I doubt myself the most.

It’s just another part of the craft that requires practice. Putting myself and my work out there, valuing my work enough to put it out there, requires repeated attempts until I get it right. Because eventually, I’ll be rewarded.

In the meantime, it’ll be worth the contest entry fees.

I Struggle with the Object Permanence of Myself

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

“I saw this and thought of you.”

This combination of words presented in this form never fails to fill me with terror.

There are two reasons for this. The first is triggered by my anxiety. I frequently see things that remind me of the humans inhabiting my little world, but I don’t tell them that or purchase the things that I see to give to said thought of person because my anxiety tells me, quite insistently, that these people do not want that. They do not want to know that I think of them. They’d rather I not think of them at all, thank you.

To have someone tell me “I saw this and thought of you” reminds me that my brain does not work in that same, unencumbered way. I immediately feel guilty because I have thought of them and never mentioned it. Or, I haven’t thought of them recently. I’m sorry! I’ve been thinking of others. But I swear I’ve thought of you before! Really! I do think of you! I just don’t say anything!

And that’s my hang-up, not theirs. I try to be better, but there’s only so much I can do while living wildly unmedicated.

Which brings me to the second reason I find myself paralyzed with fear when someone said, “I saw this and thought of you.”

Why are you thinking of me?

I am baffled by the concept of my own object permanence. The idea that I exist to other people when I’m not in their direct line of sight. Or sometimes, even then. Once when I was a junior in high school, I was accused of skipping study hall. The teacher didn’t call roll, only looked at her seating chart. That day she decided that my seat was empty despite the fact that I was indeed very much so there and though I was smaller in high school than I am now, I was rocking pre-breast reduction H-cups. I was hard to miss, and yet. Luckily, another much more popular student vouched for me, even though I’m pretty sure he only did so as a way to insult another guy in the classroom (thanks anyway, Jeff), but I still had to go down to the office and prove my existence.

Being overlooked became so common place that invisibility has become my superpower. I don’t expect to be seen. It’s always startling when I am.

So, imagine my surprise when someone thinks of me when I’m not even there.

Talk about stupefied.

My first impulse is always to ask them why. I don’t because that would be rude, but I want to.

Since I’m frequently unseen, it stands to reason that I would also be out of sight, out of mind. I just figure that I cease to exist once I’m out of the eye line. Obviously I know that I continue to exist. I’m not that kind of off-kilter (anymore). But there’s a sort of block in my thinking that allows me to accept that other people know that I continue to exist when I’m not in their presence. It doesn’t occur to me that I’d ever occur to anyone else.

I just cannot picture someone whom I haven’t seen in a few years, walking down an aisle in a store or browsing online and seeing something and thinking, “Hey! This reminds me of Christin!” And yet it has in fact happened. More than once even.

As someone as self-absorbed as I am, and as someone as so into my own head as I am, so much so that I sometimes have difficulty seeing beyond myself (probably another reason I don’t think of other people the way I’m supposed to), I am more than real to me, yet I still fancy myself some kind of ghost. I am the phantom that you only catch a fleeting glimpse of before I disappear, and you decide I was only a trick of the light and forget about me forever. Or at least until the next time you catch sight of me. I think of myself as the reality of a baby’s peek-a-boo game. Like a baby, I don’t understand that I don’t disappear when you can’t see me. I still exist outside of myself.

But the peek-a-boo pros know how the game works. I’m a person that they know, someone that they don’t always see, but who occupies a space in their world even if it’s not physical.

And sometimes they reach out to remind me that I’m still real.

Writer’s Procrastination

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

It’s a well-known gag: a writer will clean their whole house to put off writing. And like any good joke, there’s a nugget of truth in there. It’s the getting started that can be the hardest part.

Some writers say it’s the intimidation of staring at the blank screen. That blinking cursor taunting them, daring them to type the first word.

For me, I think it’s my fear of commitment.

Once I start writing something, I can’t stop. I can’t quit until I’m finished. And I don’t mean that I have to write the whole thing in one go. I mean that I don’t quit on a piece until I get to the end, no matter how much I don’t like it or don’t want to write it. Even if I know that I’m not going to do anything with it. I have to finish it.

This has a tendency to make me hesitant to start. Do I want to commit to this idea? Is it good enough to carry me all the way? Or is this thing going to die halfway through and I’m going to have drag its corpse across the finish line? All valid questions, sure, but they make me put off starting, sometimes until it’s too late. The idea goes stale or the deadline passes and I never get a word down.

This fear of commitment has been complicated by my recent struggles with my writing. I already flail when it comes to starting a piece; the lack of productivity is just kissing a papercut with salt chapstick.

I’ve even been having trouble with my blog posts. Getting started or in some cases, finishing them. I’ll get off to a strong start and for whatever reason I have to finish it later, which will be my undoing. Starting where I left off should be easy, but instead I find myself procrastinating. I can’t bring myself to start writing even though I technically already started.

It’s a strange, frustrating thing.

Especially when I know that all I have to do is start. If I just get that first sentence out, the magic will happen. I know that. But the harder I try, the more I resist. It’s almost like a panic response. I sit down to get started on a piece and I turn into a Muppet flailing in the forest. Or a middle age woman playing endless games of solitaire and constantly checking Twitter until I give up.

I’ve only been revising things lately, which has helped with my productivity, but that reprieve won’t last. And as much as I like doing NaNo, I’d like to be able to write productively outside of the month of November.

There are several ideas that I’d like to be working on right now. Ideas that have been sitting in the fore of my brain for a couple of months. They are right there, ready to go.

I just have to get started.

Nesting in a Happy Place

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I am one of those people that will comfort watch things. You know what I mean. You’re feeling a little down or blue or stressed or whatever, so you throw on your favorite TV show or movie. Something to soothe you and boost your mood.

My go-to’s are flicks like Halloween or The Fog or Delicatessen or House on Haunted Hill. You know. Real cheery stuff. Or I’ll binge-watch cartoons like The Real Ghostbusters or Danger Mouse or He-Man. Because my inner child has a tendency to be more of an outer child.

However, there are times when I need more than just a little mood booster. There are times when my sole source of serotonin comes from repetitive viewings of whatever my brain has decided to fixate on because it brought me an incredible amount of joy in a specific moment.

For example, the world is currently shit due to the fact that if you leave humans to do the right thing, they will absolutely not do that, thank you, anything but that. How have I been dealing with this fuckery for the past couple of weeks? By watching episodes of Ghosts (the US version). For 20-ish minutes, I get to tune everything else out and giggle and awww at the inhabitants of Woodstone Manor. Does it fix things? No. Does it take pressure off of my brain? Yeah, for a bit. And it gives me something to look forward to.

Several years ago I watched Ghostbusters: Answer the Call every day for six weeks. Every. Single. Day. Sometimes twice a day. It became a necessary part of my routine to help ease the brain decay I was experiencing at the time.

I mentioned Delicatessen as one of my go-to’s, right? Well, there was one point in time when I watched it daily for weeks. Drove my roommate nuts. She’s not a fan of French black comedies featuring post-apocalypse cannibalism, I guess.

I’ve done the same thing with The Fog, the Anatoly episodes of Arrow; Zelenka episodes of Stargate: Atlantis (yes, I’m fond of David Nykl, but he’s not the only actor I’ve done this with); episodes of both the 1980 and 2018 Magnum PI; and My Dinner with Andre.

I’ve been known to do the same thing with songs and albums and musicians. I create my happy place and then I move in. I stay there as long as I need to and then I move out again. Sometimes it’s a few days; sometimes it’s months. Depends on why I’m in the nest I’ve made.

And then one day I’m done. Just like that. No tapering off, no thought. One day, I just leave that nest and I’m done with that happy place. It might be a long time before I revisit the shows or movies or music of that particular experience, or I might go back to watching them or listening to them like I did before I needed them to survive.

It’s probably not the best of coping mechanisms, but I cannot deny that the serotonin boost manages to keep me sane when I need it most. A life raft in stormy seas until I get to the next piece of solid ground.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to return to my happy place.

Let’s Talk About Stress, Baby

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

In my little world, I categorize my stress into two categories: To Do List Stress and Life Stress. Sometimes they overlap, but they tend to affect me differently.

I prefer no stress, but if I had to pick one of these, I’ll pick the To Do List Stress.

To Do List Stress is the consequence of me overestimating my ability to be productive and scheduling myself to do a whole lot of things in a certain period of time. To Do List Stress is most prevalent in December, but I can honestly do this to myself at any time. I tend to cope with this stress better. Not because I can choose to reschedule the things on my To Do List to be more accommodating (because even if I say I’m going to do that, I never do), but for whatever reason, it’s just something I can handle. Maybe it’s because I’m a Capricorn. Who knows.

One contributing factor to my ability to deal with To Do List Stress is that it triggers my “DO IT ALL NOW” anxiety and out of all of my anxiety manifestations, I can actually deal with that one pretty easily. It mostly involves me reminding myself that I don’t have to do it all now and I have it all scheduled out. Do I have to remind myself of this multiple times a day, if not an hour, and does it sometimes disrupt my sleep? Yes. But it’s mild compared to what Life Stress does to me.

Life Stress is everything else in my world.

It’s working short-handed most days of the week. It’s working a customer service job during a pandemic. It’s the constant barrage of bad news. It’s going grocery shopping at any point in time. It’s the ever present strain that never seems to abate.

I’m not great at dealing with that kind of stress, at least not anymore. I think I was better at dealing with it when I was younger and more resilient. Or I was too dumb to stop and realize what I was dealing with. Whatever the reason, after the Massively Stressful Summer of ’18, my ability to cope with Life Stress is basically non-existent. It totally drains me.

Which is not good.

It’s not ideal to go through life feeling like you’re unable to catch your breath.

I think -and this is just speculation- that I might be able to cope with Life Stress better if it didn’t absolutely wreck me anxiety-wise. While To Do List Stress triggers one particular anxiety manifestation, Life Stress triggers several and they’re all the worst.

The general dread that comes with social situations, like going to work for example, goes from barely registering/normal to now dialed up to 11 because every shift guarantees an unpleasant interaction with someone.

And every unpleasant interaction leads to rumination that I can’t stop, whether I acknowledge it or not. Because most days, I just chalk it up to the normal of now and don’t consciously think about it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not pinballing through my brain, off in the background, coming to the fore when I finally sleep and the guard goes down.

Stress dreams are not fun. And I’m having them a lot more often than I ever did.

This sort of thing has made my baseline anxiety worse. I question every single human interaction I have outside of the people in my house, and still question those interactions on occasion. I cannot wish someone happy birthday without questioning my word choice. You think I’m joking, but I’m not. I can have a chat with someone I’ve known most of my life, who knows me and my quirks and my dumbassery, and still walk away from that conversation ruminating over every single thing I said and did during that interaction.

This is the toll that Life Stress takes on me. Is taking on me. Because in addition to just sucking in general, it’s also feeding a beast I’m quickly losing control of.

Now I know that I’m not unique in this. A lot of people have Life Stress issues along with mental illness. Some might argue that I’m lucky because I don’t have the added stresses of a spouse and kids and a real job. But think about it. If I can’t handle what I’ve already got, it’s probably for the best that I’m not dealing with more. I’m hardly coping (not really) as it is.

Do I feel like a complete failure and a total baby? Absolutely.

Will I find a way to cope and/or live with it?

I hope so.