What a Way to Begin

I love the new year because it is full of possibilities, hope and the joy of new beginnings. Fresh beginnings. Beginnings that could mark the day that I overcame a bad habit, accomplished a long-wished-for goal, or started doing life just a little bit better.

Today reminded me why I'm so very, very bad at new beginnings.

I wanted to go to bed early last night, but I didn't.

I wanted to get up early this morning, but I didn't (except technically when I rolled over at 4:00AM and burrowed further under the covers).

I wanted to get out the door on time, but I didn't.

I wanted to eat better, but I didn't. (Although, not eating the frosting on that first piece of cake--I call that a step in the right direction.)

I wanted my new computer set up at work, but it isn't.

I wanted my new iPod all set up with my calendar, to-do list, and email, but it isn't.

I wanted my house clean, my car clean, my laundry done, my bathroom scrubbed, my diet begun, my exercise routine down, a new job, my first house, totally debt-free bank balance, and me rockin' a bikini body.

All without lifting my pinkie finger. If only my fairy godmother had come through for me.

It was a nice list, a good list, a list worth noting. At least in my mind, if not in the actual, physical reality of the world.

And once again, I'm reminded that setting 20 exceedingly difficult goals for the new year gets me in the exact predicament I so loathe: me warding off the beginnings of a panic attack.

Well, I guess I can't say that I'm bad at all beginnings. At least not of the anxiety-disordered kind.

Happy New Year to me!

What about the rest of you? What New Year's goals do you have? Are they recent goals or goals that have been sitting on your plate for several years now? How are you planning on accomplishing those goals? In one year from now what do you most want to have accomplished in 2009?

Remember, a goal unwritten is only a wish! So, let's hear it, people.

Why Chocolate Doesn't Do the Trick During a Week Like This

Still no Internet. I know you are as upset by this news as I am. My most fervent Christmas wish of late is that the Internet will return to grace my life with its presence. I can only hope. I'd like to believe I'm not addicted to it, but I would be lying and we all know where lying takes you. (Pssst! H-E-double hockey sticks for the untaught among us.)

It is Friday night, late, and I FINALLY took my final. The anxiety level in my life has decreased from ULTRA HIGH AND COMPLETELY UNBEARABLE to INTENSE BUT BEARABLE. I must thrive on anxiety for as much as I milk it and coax it and welcome it into my home and heart. It is like a lover who courts and woos me with the constant plying of attention and devotion and proclamations of undying commitment. I can't let go of it. And it certainly seems enamored with me. It is not a mutually agreeable relationship but it is the most long-term relationship I've been in to date. And sometimes misery as your only company must satisfy as company indeed.

Despite the conclusions I will come to later in this paragraph, I am not lacking in the intelligence department. I'm not stupid. But I certainly enter a wild and weird vortex of high anxiety when it comes to taking tests or writing papers. I enter the paralyzing grip of perfectionism thinking that every word must be perfect and every paragraph pristine and every thought vetted at the highest levels of national, regional and personal, emotional security before it can be graded. I can map out a thousand ways in my brain that I could have or should have or would have done it differently if I only had more time. Those thousands of detailed maps overtake my brain so that actually learning material or writing material takes a back seat to how I actually could work the material into a better form if I could only get rid of the anxiety and focus on the material for longer than intervals of a half a second every three hours between naps, email, errands, work, phone calls, bills, or absolutely any other task that can distract me from thinking about said material long enough that I don't hyperventilate. (That was probably a run-on sentence of abhorrent length, but I will not correct it. I will not, I will not, I will not.)

Eventually I'm so worn out from trying to avoid the anxiety, that I succumb to mediocrity and turn in half-thought papers and take tests poorly. And once again I sail quietly through life with a full brain, a grieving heart, and hiding my light under a bushel. Or should I say, I'm a magician at turning a simple test into a life-or-death drama for the ages. It takes all kinds of people to make this world go 'round. And then some of us are just round people. Round people with high anxiety levels that even a double chocolate super brownie sundae can't ease.

And you ask, why then are you going back to school?

I have no idea.

How Do You Do It?

I'm in the middle of my stress cycle right now.

My cycle starts out with me thinking I've got a pretty good handle on my life. I'm like one of those jugglers with six or seven balls that I'm juggling--work, church, friends, family, home, personal. When I think things are going well then the balls are going around nicely and at a pace that feels doable and sustainable.

Then the pressure starts to build and either more balls get thrown in the rotation or I have to increase the speed that I throw the balls in order to get everything done. Then it starts to get ugly. I start dropping balls everywhere, throwing them wildly, and looking like a crazy person as I try to keep things under control until eventually I can't track any of the balls or the direction they are flying and I put my hands down in defeat and drop everything.

Then I curl up in a corner and wish I could die.

Somehow, some way after lying in the fetal position for a time and sucking my thumb, something shifts. A stillness will settle in. My head will clear. And I will uncurl myself, sit up, and look around me. Balls (they all look like yellow, fuzzy tennis balls to me) will be scattered everywhere amid broken glass, scattered bits of paper, and general ruin.

I will sigh at the disaster in front of me. Then a ball will roll right up to me and bump me gently. I get up just enough nerve to reach out and touch it. I like its fuzzy yellow exterior. It feels soft and pliable to me and easy to handle. It isn't threatening or overwhelming. It's just a little fuzzy ball. So, I pick it up. I stand up, brush myself off, take a shower and get some clean clothes on, and sweep up the mess. Then I start tossing that ball.

Within hours, I've made some crucial decisions. Some of the balls must go. Some of the balls must stay in the rotation. Which ones stay and which ones go may change each day, but the crucial lesson always is: there is only so much of me and only so many things I can handle. Choose what to let in and what to let go. The hard part is remembering that.

So, excuse me while I go and curl up in my favorite corner and wish I could die. I've got some decisions to make and they ain't easy.

And those fuzzy, yellow balls? They will be here tomorrow. And some of them will have to go.