Anxiety

Over the last few days I have been overwhelmed by the feeling that a tidal wave is coming and I’m going to be washed away without a life raft or cute lifeguard to save me.  I don’t know what is causing it.  Perhaps it is the fact that my “To Do” list is accumulating faster than the National Debt, or that on Friday it will be June and I’m just not ready for all of the appointments, meetings, and events that will consume my summer.  Maybe I’ve just been drinking too much coffee.

Whatever it is, I’ve been lying awake staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that the bug bite on my leg is the work of a mosquito, not a Black Widow spider, that the pain in my hamstrings is from yoga, not a ruptured disk or surgery-requiring back issue, and that somehow I will survive the next few weeks and end up not under the wave but over it, resting happily on the beach with a cocktail in hand.

(Mike would totally wear that hat, by the way)

I’m used to a busy schedule.  Usually sleep and a good workout are enough to keep me sane, along with a few prayers and some cheesy television.  Maybe that is why this latest bought of anxiety has caught me off guard.  Normally I eat my veggies, call my mother, and eventually my patience is rewarded with a break in the action-- preferably by a pool or on a massage table.  This time I don’t seem to have any easy answers.  I don’t have a plan.  I feel rushed and restless.  My normal tricks just aren’t working their magic.  I want a break.  I want to slow down.  I want to hit pause.  I want to take a breath.  (Something I have to remind Clyde to do anytime we give him a frozen yogurt sample.)

Then today on the treadmill, I had a thought.  If the treadmill feels fast, then I need to run faster, not just hold on for dear life.  If I try to stop, I will fall on my face.  Instead of begging in vain for the madness to stop, the wave to dissipate, the merry-go-round to stop turning for just. one. second. I need to speed up, let go, and enjoy the ride.  I need to be the girl on the surfboard on top of the wave, cruising along like a bat out of hell with a big fat smile on my face. 

The fact is, I can’t stop time.  I can’t slow my life down right now--at least not if I would like to remain gainfully employed.  I can fight the madness, or I can spend all of the energy I would use pumping my fists in the air to speed up and go along with it.  If nothing else, the effort alone should wear me out more than enough to fall sound asleep at night.