Beyond the Zone

All that fakey-fake middle-class faux-enlightenment inspirational bumf (cf. Oprah, Lululemon, Starbucks) says that you should do one thing every day that scares you.*

I am a creature of habit. I rarely do things that scare me. Unless you consider ordering the special omelette at brunch a scary activity.

Unless you consider saying yes to too many things.

Here in Ottawa, spring has sprung. I haven't had a whole evening at home by myself since last Sunday, and won't until this Wednesday. An evening I will spend holed up writing a book review to send in just under the wire for Shelley.

Wow.

I just went through the list of things that I need to do, people I want to see, commitments I've made, in the next week and I can actually feel the stress coalescing just under my sternum. My chest is feeling tight, my diaphragm has contracted up. It's like a slowly twirling ball of TV static, throwing sparks off down my nerves.

One of the things that is freaking me out is the workshop I signed myself up to give tomorrow. Giving a yoga workshop seemed like a good idea when I offered, but though I know yoga, and I know giving workshops, I've never put the two together and I'm pretty freaked out that it's going to go badly.

And did I mention the reading? On May 3rd? For which I don't have anything new written and my time to write is being slowly eaten up by other things I've said yes to and are really important to me to do? Yeah. That.

Also, and. That my grandmother is sick in the hospital? Apparently okay, but she broke her teeth when she was hallucinating during a fever on Friday? I'm going home on the 8th to visit.

And perhaps I said something about buying a house? Which is a good decision but a big decision and I think it's finally sinking in now that the busy running around schedule shifting part of it is done.

And also maybe did I say that I'm dating again even though I still sometimes cry when I think about Eric and how much I loved him and how fucking much it hurt when he told me he felt like he hadn't been a very good boyfriend and intimated that he couldn't do better, not right then, not for me? And that I'd picked the wrong person, again? When I was sure that I hadn't?

And one of these things is something that I'm going to fuck up, and something awful is going to happen. I'll look like a fool, someone will get hurt. Possibly badly. I'll drop the ball and that ball will have been made of glass and we'll all get sliced up.

Wow. Okay. You know, I just wrote myself into a complete gasping crying trembling panic attack.

If I say no to you in the next few days, my pounding heart is why.

Put that on a cup-sleeve and drink it.


*With apologies to Eleanor Roosevelt who said it first, but didn't think to slap it on a $50 yoga bag or $4 cup of coffee. Sucker.