Anxiety

Written: August 2021:

Sometimes, I think I'll die by falling down the basement stairs and smacking my head in exactly the right way. Or wrong way as the case may be.

Sometimes, I'm pretty sure the lawn is going to open up into a giant sinkhole and swallow me and Flora up so completely nobody will hear my screaming. Or slide down the side of the mountain I'm hiking up and somehow get tossed over the side. Sometimes, I'm positive I'll be taken out by an oncoming car while on a stroll.

Most of the time, I fall on the side of just not waking up. 

They say this is anxiety and for a long time I swallowed a pill every day to kill these ideas. I know all of it is bullshit. I know this is my lizard brain looking out for me. She does that and she's killed a lot of fun and probably saved my ass many times. I probably could have used her help between 1987-1992, but alas she awoke when Patrick died and the bitch is here to stay. 

She showed me the beauty of routine, the solace of my own fourteen hundred square feet. She reminds me that the simple things are usually the best things and the people you spend your days with are who matter most. I love that about her. 

She also stops me from sending stories out to publish. She reminds me I'm far too out of shape, the scale is never good enough, that just because I'm pushing...

~~~~~

Tough days. Good to look back, but not always fun.