High Anxiety.....(Ziety!)

Sunday I was feeling overwhelmed.  There was no particular reason.  I just had too much to do and not enough time to do it.  This of course is no different than any other day really, but for some reason I was feeling anxious and on the verge of tears.  I. Just. Couldn’t. Handle. It. All.

I had been mired in housecleaning and laundry all weekend long.  By 11:30 a.m. I had put away 6 loads of laundry, including the two loads that had been sitting folded in a basket on the floor of my bedroom for two weeks – that’s right, I said two weeks, don’t judge me – and I still had a load in the dryer, one in the washer and at least one, possibly two on deck.  I still had a stack of bills that needed to be paid, a shower that needed cleaning (is pink mold bad?), the papers that had been sitting spread out across my dining room table and shoved in a pile and into a basket for a dinner party on Saturday night had to be sorted through before something important (a field trip slip, an insurance payment, a coupon for a free basket of fries at Islands) was overlooked, and a blog to write.  This wouldn’t have been so bad except that my son had a playoff flag football game at 12:00 (with a possible championship game at 1:00) and as soon as that was over I had to drive 45 minutes to an art show that my cousin’s husband had some pieces in with no hope of returning home until at least 6:00 when I would have to figure out dinner, dictate baths, and start getting ready for the return to work and school on Monday. 

Again, we all do this all the time right?  Too much stuff piled into not enough hours.  But somehow we manage.  We prioritize.  We do what we can.  We delegate some tasks to children.  We sigh in frustration when our 9-year-old child cleans the bathroom and there is still hair on the floor and toothpaste in the sink and streaks on the mirror that look worse than the water spots that were wiped away.  We try really, really, (really) hard to be pleasant instead of bitchy when our husband folds the towels the wrong way because he’s trying to be helpful.  We take two aspirin to make that pain surfacing right between our eyeballs go away.  And then tomorrow we get up and do it all over again.

But on Sunday I just felt antsy.  I went to my son’s football game and the weather was gorgeous.  Blue skies.  75 degrees.  Perfect spring weather.  When I was there I felt great.  I didn’t want to leave.  So when Chandler’s team lost their game instead of heading home to shuffle more laundry from the washer to the dryer and heading to the art show I stayed at the park and talked to friends and played Frisbee with Marley for about an hour.  I figured I had booked the time anyway as I would have stayed that hour for a second football game had Chandler’s team won.  But I also didn't want to leave because I knew as soon as I got home I'd have to leave for the show.

When I finally did get home from the park I gave Marley a snack, changed my shoes, put on some lipstick, combed my hair and called Dave and asked him to come home so I could leave for the art show.  Then instead of walking out the door I called my mom and told her I was stressed and anxious and overwhelmed and I felt terrible but I just didn’t think I could go.  And because my mom is awesome she gave me the permission I was seeking to stay home.  She told me my cousin and her husband would understand.  That’s the thing about people who love you – they understand.  I felt badly.  I really wanted to go to the show and support my cousin’s husband.  It sounded like a cool event.  I wanted to spend the afternoon with my family.  But I was filled with so much anxiety.  And I’m not usually like that.  I get stressed.  I get overwhelmed.  I get cranky; hell I get downright bitchy.  But I don’t usually get anxious.

It’s hard to explain and I’ll probably come off sounding like a freak, but I just felt like I shouldn’t go.  I had a bad feeling.  Deep down in my gut.  A feeling that if I went I wouldn’t come back.  And because it was highly unlikely that Bradley Cooper would be hanging out at an art show at the Hyatt in Valencia, the reason for my not coming back would have to do more with a vague premonition of crunched metal and deployed airbags than me leaving Dave and the kids for Hollywood’s hottest leading man who is sure to fall madly in love with me at first sight and will undoubtedly beg me to run away with him when we do finally meet.

Wait…

Which part is making me sound more like a freak – the weird-vague-premonition-anxiety thing or my (not-quite-but-almost-bored)-suburban-housewife (even though I’m not really a housewife) fantasy life bordering on obsession with Bradley Cooper?  Who cares?  It’s my blog and I’ll sound like a freak if I want to.  (Would it help if I told you that sometimes I substitute David Cook or Clive Owen for Bradley Cooper?  No?  Oh well.)

But in all seriousness I am trying to be better at listening to my gut.  It seems to me that when I don't listen to it I end up paying for it.  Whether it's going along with the advice of a repairman you know is trying to scam you because you're too unconfrontational to speak up or not crossing the street when you see a creepy guy walking towards you on the sidewalk because to cross seems weird or rude - if you don't listen to that voice screaming inside your head - you are going to pay.  Security expert and best-selling author Gavin de Becker teaches people that the number one way to stay safe is to listen to your gut.  He says that people have instincts just like animals do, but we "reason" our instincts away.  We tell ourselves we are being silly, paranoid, or overly sensitive.  Well on Sunday I might have been all three of those things, but I was going to be them at home.  Would I have died in a fiery crash if I had gone to that art show?  Probably not.  Most likely I had just put too much on my plate and was feeling overwhelmed by it.  The truth is we'll never know.  But I do know this, once I decided to stay home the only thing I was overwhelmed by was an incredible feeling of calm despite all of the things I still had to do.

Dave and Chandler walked in the door from the park.  “You heading out?” he asked me.

“I know it sounds weird but I have a really bad feeling and I just can’t go.  I just called them and told them I’m not coming.”

And just when I thought he was going to tell me I was being silly and I should go – that he would take care of the kids and dinner (but most likely not the laundry and definitely not the pink mold) has smiled at me and said, “I’m glad you’re staying home.”  Maybe he had a feeling too.  “I told the kids we’d watch a video.  Do you want to watch it with us?”

I still had to pay bills.  I still had laundry to fold and put away.  I still had a blog to write.  I was nowhere near figuring out what to do about dinner.  And of course there was the very pressing issue of the pink mold.  But my anxiety was completely gone – like a weight lifted off of my shoulder.  “Yeah, I’d love to watch a video with you guys.  Just give me 5 minutes.”  So I shuffled some laundry and came to the den with a full basket and sat down on the floor to fold laundry as I watched a video with my family.  That load of laundry, along with the one I put in the dryer after it, is still sitting on the floor in the den.  I’m hoping to get it put away sometime within the next two weeks.