March 2007

Angry bear + PMS boobies = amusement!

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

It’s SNOWING outside!

..and when spring fever hits. Oh yes.

On the way out of the library yesterday, I kept hearing a loud rustling noise that reminded me of walking through overly-dried autumn leaves. The sidewalk was bare, however, and most of the trees were too.

But then we came across a tree that was still fully covered in dry, reddish-brown leaves. And the rustling noise grew louder as we approached it and the wind blew through the branches. All the other trees looked ridiculously naked next to this oak tree.

We stopped so I could take a picture and Coffee immediately commented, “It’s a.. NEVER NUDE!” which set both of us into full-on giggles. Heee!

(Three points if you can name the reference for “never nudes” without Googling it!)

Per my usual schedule, I am not sleeping very well. It’s PMS, and I know it’s PMS, and I can’t do much about it other than make the decision to simply lie still in bed and hope that my body is somehow taking advantage of my lack of motion to do all the important things it needs to do when I’m normally asleep.

Judging by the results most mornings, I’d say that those “important things” include making my mouth taste like ass and forming eye-boogers in the corners of my eyes. Oh, and letting me have wacky dreams to describe in excrutiating detail to anyone who will listen.

Or maybe it does more important things; I don’t really care, because I’m not sleeping and lack of sleep makes me not care about certain things.

I swallowed my sleeping pills for three nights in a row, hoping that would knock my system back to the understanding that I am the one who decides when we sleep and when we don’t. I decided not to take them last night because I have this fear of becoming reliant on sleeping pills even though my doctor tells me I can safely take them for up to three weeks.

What does HE know? I mean, he may have gone to med school but I have my gMD (also known as my “Google MD”) and I’ve READ those horror stories. No thanks!

At any rate, last night’s “sleep” was one of those torturous adventures that mostly involved me drifting off and waking up twenty minutes later in a stupidly uncomfortable position. An arm, totally numb, twisted under my body. A leg hanging off the bed and freezing from being in the direct path of the fan’s cold air path. My pillow somehow smothering my own face and tangled up in my duvet to such an extent that I have to sit UP to fix it.

Once I rolled around and readjusted my limbs, I’d drift off. Then I’d wake up again in yet another stupid position. By around 4 am I was starting to feel a little hostile about the whole thing.

I suggested to Coffee that tonight, if he really loved me, he’d stay awake and reposition my comatose body every 19 minutes so that I wouldn’t have to wake up and do it myself. Apparently that isn’t something he’s keen on doing. I don’t understand him sometimes.

Seriously, though, my body used to be just FINE with flailing around all night long. Have I really gotten SO lazy that I can’t be bothered to move IN MY SLEEP?

The kicker here is that I’d bet a zillion dollars that if I went upstairs, now, at 1:05pm in the damned afternoon, I’d be able to pass out in the most beautiful and decadent nap.

The only thing stopping me from proving that assertion is the knowledge that my body would just rebel a thousand times over tonight when I’m trying to get some real sleep. I can imagine my hands deciding that numbness isn’t enough – and then randomly slapping the crap out of me while I’m sleeping. Maybe I could kick myself until I bruise? Oh, maybe I could bite my own tongue..

Sleep. That’s where I’m a Viking.

They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind. -Scottish saying

In the interest of moving beyond “anxious me” and returning to “she who is never anxious for dumb reasons”, I have been stretching myself in small ways. Most of the ways wouldn’t impress ANYONE unless they had ever suffered from anxiety for any length of time – and the anxious among the group will no doubt understand my pride at tackling this uncomfortable feeling.

There are a four types of anxiety that take place in my world, as I was describing to Kelly this afternoon.

The first is legitimate – I’m anxious for a specific reason, for a certain period of time, and it resolves itself once the situation is finished. An example would be a trip to the dentist; I am anxious before, anxious during, and once everything is over I return to feeling fine. There is no residual anxiety.

The second is physical. My body, for whatever reason, begins to feel tense. My stomach starts to turn over a bit. There is absolutely no reason for the anxious feeling, and so my mind begins to scour the enrivironment, my life, my relationships, my finances, and anything else that has caused me anxiety in the past. I refuse to believe my body would inflict this sensation on me for no reason whatsoever, so I drive myself batty trying to figure out the reason(s).

The third is situational and self-inflicted. The doorbell rings and I begin to freak out about who’s there, why they’re there and what they want. I imagine all sorts of horrible scenarios. I fear for my safety or my loved ones safety. I envision someone at the door with bad news or a legal document or telling me my house is about to collapse. I do not simply see the situation the way other people might – y’know, as a.. doorbell ringing.

The fourth, of course, is the full-on panic attack. Whether this one is triggered or ‘just happens’, it’s the Grand Daddy of All Anxiety. It’s anxiety pushed to it’s unbelievably nasty conclusion – the “I’m Going To Die” response. This is the one that I experienced from October to November of 2005 and which still haunts me. I am thankful that I have not experienced it since.

My biggest issues are the two in the middle – situational/self-inflicted and physical.

The physical usually stems from my ulcer and resulting tummy weakness; my gut likes to twinge and tingle and do all sorts of things that make me wonder what’s going on in there. I am learning how to dissipate that anxious feeling through cold glasses of water, some fresh air, a walk, a nap.. something that distracts me from the non-event.

The situational/self-inflicted part requires me to battle the ‘self-talk’ that sometimes takes over. For this, I have been instructed to ask myself “what someone else would say” if I were to tell them about this anxious fear. I use Coffee for this – the “Coffee Voice” is very reasonable and sensible and grounded.

When the doorbell rings and the voice in my head starts wondering what evil lurks on the other side of the door, I simply imagine trying to explain that anxiety to Coffee. I know, without question, his reply would be, “Um, why not just answer the door and find out?” Fill in something equally rational for nearly every other situation that I question.

I have been very successful thus far. Very, very successful.

Last night, after spending the day in the United States of America with Lena, I returned home tired but happy. We had a lot of fun, I picked up some of the stuff I needed (and some stuff for my dear Melle) and when bedtime came I was dressed in my jammas and ready for sleep. And then I casually mentioned to Coffee that I was feeling “off”.

I spent some time mentally running through my anxiety checklist:

- finances – fine!
- health – fine!
- relationship – fine!
- animal health – fine!
- adoption – fine!
- friends – fine!
- day’s activities – fine!

.. so what could it be? Why was I feeling “off”? It wasn’t really an anxious feeling so much as.. well, OFF. I had a good day and I was tired and happy and.. why was I feeling “not right”?

Coffee was silent as I ran through the checklist and then he said, “Maybe you’re just not feeling anxious? And that’s weird for you?”

By George, I think he’s got it!

I was feeling completely un-anxious for the first time in.. eons! I was heading off to bed with no major concerns or worries. I was able to look at the various challenges coming up in our lives with a clear head that did not involve a roiling pit of bad-feeling and whoah, baby, that’s a BIG DEAL over here.

Do you know what it’s like to not feel anxious? IT’S WEIRD.

Today was much of the same – visiting the library, eating sushi, talking with Kelly – all with zero anxiety in my gut. I skipped through the parking lot, snuggled up with Coffee at Ye’s, laughed out loud and, my god, there wasn’t a drop of concern in there.

It was like I had spent the morning gnawing on anti-anxiety meds! But I hadn’t! I felt so light and lighthearted.

I have a few things coming up in the near future that need to be handled carefully. In the past, despite knowing my own skills and strengths, I’d have been anxious over some aspect of them. Not because I can’t handle them, but because they’re new and not yet in my comfort zone, and I’d have found ways to talk myself out of going/doing/seeing/participating.

To think that I may just get to live life out loud again – as I used to! – is.. well, it’s totally a “holy crap!” thing for me. I’ve been managing and coping with the anxiety in the past, and I haven’t exactly been locked in my house (despite what Melle will tell you) – but I haven’t felt this light and free in.. many, many, many years.

I can’t even describe how truly amazing this is. I just can’t.

After a long day of adventuring with my friend Lena – more on that later – I decided to stop by my cousin’s house on the way home. I was tired and there was a snow storm kicking around, but I needed to pick something up and figured I might as well do it while I was in the area.

My cousin bought my childhood home from my Dad – several years before my Dad died. At the time, I was absolutely devestated by this turn of events. Shattered. Bordering on hysterical. I took very little comfort from the idea that the house would still be ‘in the family’ and instead focused on the knowledge that my bedroom was no longer mine.

For years, I have felt quite tender about the house – I have accepted that it’s no longer mine, and that my cousin and his family (a family that has grown to include three kids over the years!) now consider it home. They have painted and stripped wallpaper and made assorted changes both for maintenence’s sake and for their own taste and wishes.

Over the years I’ve visited a handfull of times and, on each occasion, have felt anxious on stepping through the door. I calm down a bit once I’m settled into a chair or talking to one of the kids, and I’m able to look around and see that the house is truly a home for people that I love. I like seeing how the kids’ rooms are full of toys and colour. But there’s always a nagging sadness. I want to stay. I don’t want to leave.

Last night I popped in and visited for a few minutes, chatting about the snow and about kids and all the little bits of life that come up in conversation. And when it was bedtime for the kids, and I realized I needed to start heading back to Kitchener, I felt.. fine. Perfectly okay. Not a drop of wistful.

I now know what my ‘problem’ was, all these years. It wasn’t that I wanted my cousin out of MY house, or that I was still mad that my Dad sold it to him and not me. It wasn’t that my cousin had made changes.

For so many years – seventeen, in fact – that was my HOME. It was my safe spot and the place where everything was comfortable and predictable and where nothing was strange or foreign. I knew the smells and the textures of the walls and where, in the hallway, the floorboard would creak if I wasn’t careful to step over it in the middle of the night.

Last night, pulling down the driveway, out into the snow, I felt relief that I was on my way home. To Kitchener. To MY HOME. Where I feel comfortable and safe and where I am getting to know every creak of the floor. HOME to my family – my beloved husand and dogs and various beasts – to the place where I am loved the very most.

Until now – until this house in Kitchener – I didn’t have that. And so I clung to my childhood home, as it changed and shifted under the reign of a new family, and just couldn’t seem to find comfort at all. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy living in Toronto and my various houses in Hamilton.. but they were not home.

I can say with absolute certainty that I am very glad my cousin and his family are living in my “old home” – that I had the chance to say goodbye over the years, to pop in for the little bits of comfort that it still gave me. It was good to let go slowly.

When I pulled into the driveway of my house in Kitchener – saw the lights on inside, saw Coffee’s car parked out front – I felt relief. Happiness. I knew that when I walked through the door I’d be met with love. I am so very grateful to have found my HOME. To be safe and secure and loved and cherished and planning a future here.

This is where I am meant to be and I am so glad to be here.