Tag: bucket list

Ebbing my anxiety, one bucket list (blog post) at a time.

It’s been about a week since my first post, and I’m excited to announce I haven’t given it up! (+1 Emily!) I have a horrid track record with “new” projects, especially when the project involves sinking my teeth into my innermost battles with mental health and publicly sharing them with the world. (I promise I’m not always this dramatic – I hide my anxiety behind self-deprecating humor. Wow, real unique, huh?) ((See, there I go again. BE NICE TO YOURSELF, EMILY, GEEZ.))

Anyways. I’ve been thinking about how to shape this blog to be both value added to myself and to you. It’s interesting how many different potential directions this could go; self-help DIY, chronological documentation, experience-sharing, therapeutic deep-dive, etc. It’s like the Sylvia Plath quote that I love far too much about not knowing which fig to eat – the reason it’s been a week since my last post is not for lack of content, but lack of direction.

That being said, for now, I’m thinking the best thing I can do here is talk about my anxiety bucket list, both in what I’ve done and am currently doing as well as future intentions. I’m sure this blog will take shape at some point… just like my life direction, amIright?! (The self-disdain is loud tonight.)

SATURDAY, January 5th, 2019
On Saturday, I walked the half a block from my apartment to a nail salon I’d been eyeing for the last 8 months. They didn’t have time for a walk in, but they did have time to set an appointment for me one hour later.

I left, stopped by the CVS nearby, swung into a Jimmy Johns, and proceeded to walk and eat a sub while I wandered the downtown area. As someone who has suffered from anxiety about eating in front of people for most of my life, it was strangely exhilarating to munch on a sub while crossing paths with people who clearly were not paying attention to me or my scandalous snack one bit. This was a good reminder of the ideology that you are the main character in your own story, as is everyone else – it’s not that they don’t care, but we all have our own internal monologue driving our attention, so we’re too busy with ourselves to notice the skittish woman chomping down on her veggie sub in the middle of the sidewalk.

I grabbed a small latte and walked back to the nail salon, but not before stalking the brand new autonomous shuttle the city launched a few weeks ago – catching that thing and taking it for a spin is high on my bucket list, I’ll tell you what.

Once I was seated, I was faced with the largest challenge yet – small talking with the nail tech. I couldn’t possibly grab my conversation cards out of my pocket while she was actively holding my fingers hostage, so when she asked me what brought me in, I told her – The Anxiety Bucket List. She was curious, so I explained the premise; surprisingly, her eyes softened when I told her this was part of my journey to combat anxiety, and she vehemently stated that everyone should have a similar list. I ended up asking them what I should add next, and the nail tech to her left promptly exclaimed, “Rock climbing!” Luckily, this was already a staple on my list, so I was able to pick his brain a bit on rights/wrongs and suggested venues.

Long story short, my nails turned out fabulously and the whole experienced was really fascinating. I picked a moody purplish black color that, in my opinion, adequately captures my stormy disposition. I’ll be enjoying this decision for the next week for sure.

Now that my fingers were looking exquisite, I decided I should go test these babies out – that’s right, I went STRAIGHT to a second hand music shop to try out keyboards. I’ve been wanting one in my apartment for years, but hadn’t had the courage to go looking; apparently dramatic nails were the catalyst I didn’t know I needed.

I walked in, avoiding eye contact with the people behind the counter, and was simultaneously assaulted by a cacophony of musical noise (meant with a positive connotation) along with several cold shoulders – I was there for 45 minutes and not a single employee approached me. Now this is a good thing in that they gave me my space, but tricky in that I needed their expertise to know what I was getting myself into. After I played a good 25% of the songs stored in my dusty memory banks, I detached myself from the sleek Yamaha I’d fallen for and quietly snuck out of the store, feeling a strange juxtaposition of exhilaration from the passion music draws out of me and disappointment in myself for not talking to the employees.

Thinking I’d made a big mistake in opening up that tender part of myself, I started to drive back home – I’m not sure whether it was the drama of my nails or the determination to keep my adventuresome streak alive a bit longer, but something pushed me to seek out a store I’d seen briefly in my research earlier that day, called “Grave’s Piano and Organ Co.”

When I found the store, I immediately questioned my better judgement – it was isolated, behind another storefront, and looked straight out of the 80’s. It took an immense amount of courage and mental prodding (“if you don’t walk in there RIGHT NOW what the hell are you going to write about on your DOOMED BLOG?!”) to get me through the front door.

To be continued… I want to be sure I give this story the enthusiasm it deserves, and I’m too far in my own head to feel that what I’m writing is worthwhile. I’ll be back.

Until next time. (She leans back, dissatisfied. What was her problem? This weekend was amazing. She knocked off three bucket list items in two days – this should be easy, stream-of-consciousness style. “But what if no one cares?” She closed her eyes. The quiet, condescending inner-monologue continued. “What if your writing is a bore? What makes you so special that people will want to read what you have to write?” She rubbed her hands over her eyes, frustrated. She was not going to win the battle tonight. As she felt what had moments ago been warm excitement in her chest grow cold, the apathy smoothly took control, driving her fingers to navigate the treacherous mouse to the top of the page. “That dumb blue button,” she thought bitterly as she clicked ‘Publish’ knowing what she’d written was nowhere near ready. She sighed, turned off the lamp, and curled into a ball in her dark room. “Tomorrow,” she whispered to herself. Tomorrow, she’d try again.)

Steinway & Sons piano with left hand posed on the keys, dark purplish black nail polish on each of the five fingers.
To be continued – for now, a moody picture of the aforementioned moody nails will suffice.

Why did I think starting a blog with anxiety, about anxiety, was ever a good idea?

There are few things in this world that don’t spike my anxiety – namely, sleeping, reading, and organizing. That leaves everything else, including this recent endeavor, on the “things that make me want to barf” list.

So when the nagging idea to start a blog finally pushed itself from a frequently passing thought onto the “things that keep you up at night” list (see, told you I like organizing), I realized it was time to pursue putting my anxious thoughts and experiences down in writing for the rest of the world to see – even if the idea of public attention it makes me want to hurl.

In the coming ambiguous time period (commitment also gives me anxiety), I’m planning to document my trials and tribulations with mental illness, all the while hoping that someone, somewhere will feel less alone. Who knows – maybe by the end of this, blogging won’t be on my barf list anymore!

Before we go, I’d like to provide a brief introduction. The name’s Emily. I’ve had anxiety since the moment I was born. You can ask my mother – she reminds me often, with affectionate adoration in her voice (or so I chose to hear), that I’ve always been “3 going on 30”. She’s not wrong; I’ve been concerned about everything, all the time for as long as I can remember.

The perk of this is that I’m basically an expert coping techniques, the most important of which stem from Em’s Anxiety Bucket List. Also included are copious amounts of reading, learning new things, spending way too much time on the internet, and living my life as if I am an undercover agent who has been convincing everyone around me for 27.67 years that I’m a functioning human without a care in the world.

Now before I address the impending panic attack related to hitting that daunting “Publish” button that’s been adamantly mocking me since I first clicked the equally-aggressive “Write” button, I want to throw out a quick thank you to whoever is reading this. You’re with me in the beginning of my most ambitious anxiety bucket list adventure yet, and I promise I’ll do my best to make this worth our time.

Until next time. (She sits back from the computer, letting out an exasperated sigh of relief. No, the writing wasn’t difficult – typing out a running mental commentary isn’t hard at all. It was the next step causing the feeling of panic to creep up into her chest – the whole “make yourself vulnerable to the world and risk seeming… well, seeming anything at all” step that had nestled itself painfully between her shoulder blades, preventing her from getting enough air. She slowly navigated the mouse to the top right corner of the screen, the high horse upon which the Publish button was perched. The dread made her fingers heavy – how do people do this regularly?!, she thought frantically to herself. She read the post over for the 15th time, took another long pull on her coffee, delicately wiped her brow, made a mental list of every reason why she shouldn’t be doing this, made another mental list of why she should, stretched her fingers, admired her fingers, scolded herself for procrastinating, and then; she took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and clicked. It was done. The first post was live.)