Keep Calm and Make a List

For all my A-type-ness, I had the perfect weekend. Dinner with a friend after work on Friday at my favorite bar in the world, home to bed early. Went to the Christmas market with a girlfriend on Saturday, picked up a couple of Christmas presents, home early, read a book, went to bed. Got up this morning and grabbed a coffee, got to work on my final assignment of the school term, took a break and went to yoga.

I love the Sunday 10 am teacher but she knows me and could tell something was wrong with me today. The panic won't leave me alone. She came over and whispered, "you keep shaking". I said I was ok. It wasn't the time or the place to explain to her my extreme problems with anxiety and how I'd had a panic attack on the way over. I made it through the class, picked up some lunch and finished my last paper. Did some work to prep for some meetings tomorrow morning. Called my grandma, did laundry, took a shower. Went back to the Christmas market in the freezing, freezing cold.

Now everything I did this weekend was super fun/important. But I almost didn't do any of it. When the anxiety takes over, I have trouble concentrating. I want to go back to bed. But that just makes me more anxious that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So this weekend I made a list. Of everything I was supposed to do, what time and where. It makes me happy to be able to cross things off. I briefly thought I'd like to go to church again, but it didn't make sense to think I'd be able to fit it into the list so instead, I wrote down what I believed I could actually accomplish. If I could find the strength to get out of bed.

Surprisingly, everything is crossed off and I'm even halfway through my new favorite book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I love the classics, huge Jane Austen fan. But zombies just make everything better. I guess part of me always believed in them since the JWs are so big on the fact that everyone is coming back from the dead. I think they just see that a little bit differently than the rest of us do. :)

Point is, life's up and downs can be scary and after what I've been through, most of the time I just want to throw in the towel and go back to bed. But if we force ourselves to cross all those important things off our lists, we might just start to feel happy again. Or at the very least, like we're really alive, and not just a zombie.