Bah
I got to work this morning and found that my co-worker who was supposedly on vacation all this week—the reason I wasn't allowed to take even a single day off for Christmas—isn't even leaving until Wednesday. Wednesday, otherwise known as the day after I would have been back from the trip I had planned. This person is here all day today, just like me. We'll both be here all day tomorrow too. And just as I had predicted, there's almost nothing to do.
As hard as I've tried to get into the spirit of the holidays this year (although maybe I didn't try as hard as I could have), I've just been feeling kind of angry and depressed lately. I could go into my usual list of reasons to not feel this way: Mr. A made a heartwarming and impressive effort to inspire me with lots of affection and enthusiasm and some really ingenious presents ... I had several good conversations with various members of my family last week ... received many cool and thoughtful gifts from people who love me ... had a nice celebratory dinner with some friends who are smart, witty, and urbane, and who enjoy stimulating the intellect that is slowly withering away to nothing somewhere deep inside my increasingly thick and cobweb-encrusted skull ... and riding home late at night after that dinner, had a close encounter with a young skunk that crossed the road right in front of me and stopped, like I did, to stare into the face of another curious fellow being (me). We were standing under a street light, as it happened, so I could see her clearly: a small, tidy black and white animal with dense, shiny fur and sparkly black eyes. We looked at each other for a good twenty to thirty seconds before she decided I wasn't going to try to mess with her, and continued on her way into the field.
Normally all these things would have really given me a lift. I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am thankful. Sometimes I can't help it, though—I just want certain things to be different. My dissatisfactions du jour are really not interesting enough to enumerate in any great detail (not that that's ever stopped me before). They're just the usual things having to do with my house, relationships, job, body, self-esteem and of course the state of the world and all the various conditions of suffering that I can't do anything about except to feel all my various feelings about them.
My terrible diet of the last couple of weeks is at least partly to blame. Too much sugar and chocolate, mainly. Last night I never really fell fully asleep, just kept drifting off only to notice, after some unidentifiable amount of time had passed, that I was still aware of myself lying there awake. By morning I was even more exhausted than I was last night, which led to symptoms very much like the paralyzing anxiety attacks I used to have almost every day for several years in a row. That scared me all over again. I don't ever want to live like that again.
Anyway, the ride to work took most of the edge off the anxiety, and then my sister-in-law called to talk for a minute, which cheered me up. I've been nursing a hot cup of Emergen-C (vitamin C plus 32 mineral complexes and B vitamins!) all morning and in a few minutes I'm going to walk down the street and order the crispy duck sandwich I saw on the menu of a new cafe I've been meaning to check out. And later this week I have a lunch date with this new bicycle-riding woman I've been getting to know. I'd seen her riding around town and had assumed from her many-layered outfits that she was homeless and/or possibly a little cuckoo, but I happened to be in the front office the other day when she came in to place an ad, and got talking with her, and as it turns out she is neither homeless nor deranged but a bright and delightful 80-year-old person who is simply trying to keep warm. She came in again last week to give me an update on her bike (it had been stolen—hence the ad—but she'd just gotten it back, and I'd offered to have Mr. A, bicycle mechanic extraordinaire, give it the once-over and tune it up for her), and then our paths crossed again on a sunny street corner on Christmas Eve and we spent close to an hour just chatting.
I gathered from our conversation that she probably is a little eccentric. But then, who isn't? I'm just looking forward to pushing out of my comfort zone a bit, to get to know someone who seems like a possible kindred spirit who could use a friend. Not to mention my own need for connection, information, inspiration—I hope I'm still riding a bike when I'm 80 years old! Hmm. Actually, I'm already halfway there.
Man, I really need to start getting my shizzizzle together.
As hard as I've tried to get into the spirit of the holidays this year (although maybe I didn't try as hard as I could have), I've just been feeling kind of angry and depressed lately. I could go into my usual list of reasons to not feel this way: Mr. A made a heartwarming and impressive effort to inspire me with lots of affection and enthusiasm and some really ingenious presents ... I had several good conversations with various members of my family last week ... received many cool and thoughtful gifts from people who love me ... had a nice celebratory dinner with some friends who are smart, witty, and urbane, and who enjoy stimulating the intellect that is slowly withering away to nothing somewhere deep inside my increasingly thick and cobweb-encrusted skull ... and riding home late at night after that dinner, had a close encounter with a young skunk that crossed the road right in front of me and stopped, like I did, to stare into the face of another curious fellow being (me). We were standing under a street light, as it happened, so I could see her clearly: a small, tidy black and white animal with dense, shiny fur and sparkly black eyes. We looked at each other for a good twenty to thirty seconds before she decided I wasn't going to try to mess with her, and continued on her way into the field.
Normally all these things would have really given me a lift. I know I have a lot to be thankful for, and I am thankful. Sometimes I can't help it, though—I just want certain things to be different. My dissatisfactions du jour are really not interesting enough to enumerate in any great detail (not that that's ever stopped me before). They're just the usual things having to do with my house, relationships, job, body, self-esteem and of course the state of the world and all the various conditions of suffering that I can't do anything about except to feel all my various feelings about them.
My terrible diet of the last couple of weeks is at least partly to blame. Too much sugar and chocolate, mainly. Last night I never really fell fully asleep, just kept drifting off only to notice, after some unidentifiable amount of time had passed, that I was still aware of myself lying there awake. By morning I was even more exhausted than I was last night, which led to symptoms very much like the paralyzing anxiety attacks I used to have almost every day for several years in a row. That scared me all over again. I don't ever want to live like that again.
Anyway, the ride to work took most of the edge off the anxiety, and then my sister-in-law called to talk for a minute, which cheered me up. I've been nursing a hot cup of Emergen-C (vitamin C plus 32 mineral complexes and B vitamins!) all morning and in a few minutes I'm going to walk down the street and order the crispy duck sandwich I saw on the menu of a new cafe I've been meaning to check out. And later this week I have a lunch date with this new bicycle-riding woman I've been getting to know. I'd seen her riding around town and had assumed from her many-layered outfits that she was homeless and/or possibly a little cuckoo, but I happened to be in the front office the other day when she came in to place an ad, and got talking with her, and as it turns out she is neither homeless nor deranged but a bright and delightful 80-year-old person who is simply trying to keep warm. She came in again last week to give me an update on her bike (it had been stolen—hence the ad—but she'd just gotten it back, and I'd offered to have Mr. A, bicycle mechanic extraordinaire, give it the once-over and tune it up for her), and then our paths crossed again on a sunny street corner on Christmas Eve and we spent close to an hour just chatting.
I gathered from our conversation that she probably is a little eccentric. But then, who isn't? I'm just looking forward to pushing out of my comfort zone a bit, to get to know someone who seems like a possible kindred spirit who could use a friend. Not to mention my own need for connection, information, inspiration—I hope I'm still riding a bike when I'm 80 years old! Hmm. Actually, I'm already halfway there.
Man, I really need to start getting my shizzizzle together.
1 Comments:
"Shizzizzle!" What a strange and beautiful word. So fun to say.
I want to know about the wonderful presents Mr. A got you!
And I'm so glad to hear you're getting to know an 80-year-old woman! I'm jealous, actually!
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