This too shall pass

I'm not gonna lie, I'm feeling pretty low today. It's hard to keep up a smile when everyone around you is in pain or stressed out or miserable. You want to fix it. You want to fix it all. And you feel like you could if you tried - but if you could, why haven't you tried? Why haven't you already rearranged that cabinet, repainted that ceiling, called that doctor, fixed that light fixture, cleaned all the crap out of that room, reorganized the closet? If you could do it, why haven't you? Maybe everyone is miserable because you haven't bothered to do these things. Why can't you be more productive with your life? Why can't you organize your time better so you can get more sleep and have more energy to cook dinner and go to the gym and clean up the back yard?

Do you see where I'm going with this? I need to fix it all. FIX ALL THE THINGS. And then i just want to curl in a ball with a box of cookies and not think about anything or talk to anyone or think about how I'm doing my life wrong. And THIS is why i started this blog. Several months of increased anxiety attacks(something that is usually pretty rare for me unless i'm under extreme stress), feeling constantly unwell and stomach acid, which i'm pretty sure is from stress. I need to chill the fuck out. Nothing is urgent. Nothing needs to be done now. You can't put everything off forever, but sometimes now is not the time. I guess i could try and fix everything. Sure, i could wear myself out too. Or i could try doing one thing at a time. God, even writing this is upping my anxiety and increasing my heart rate. The caffeine doesn't help, I'm sure. 

But today i didn't do a lot. I sat around, ate a leisurely lunch, took care of something I've been putting off, played with my cat who has been antsy since we were gone for a few days, took a walk and took it easy. I felt pretty great. And then everyone around me gets all tense and suddenly i feel sick to my stomach and one cup of coffee feels like 5 and i get this feeling that everything needs to be fixed and its my fault and it feels like it will never, ever go away. 

And i need to CUT THAT SHIT OUT. Because it's gonna be OK. I don't have anything due to tomorrow. No papers, no deadlines, no unpaid bills(not at the moment anyway), no blood transfusions, no flights to catch. I just gotta wake up, shower, and get to work. That's not so hard, right? I need to stop thinking it's all my fault, and that it's my job to fix it all. Because it's not. I can only do so much. and maybe right now that is just working, and going out sometimes, and writing here, and trying to learn how to relax. Maybe that's why i feel so sad? Because it feels like my fault. But this isn't my job. this isn't an 8 hour period where i get paid to constantly move and do things. This is the rest of the time. Maybe i just need to worry less. Maybe i need to stop thinking about how this feels like how it always is, how it always will be. This is temporary. All of it. 

Maybe i should just try and do something i enjoy. Maybe i should go write about something that makes me smile. I'm just not sure how to get out of this mindset that i'm doing everything wrong. That i'm living my life wrong. That is one of the worst feelings in the world - the idea that the way you go about things, the way you think and the way you do things, that it's all wrong and nobody bothered to tell you.