AUGUST IS MAKING MY ANXIOUS

Last week when I sat down to re-do our dry-erase calendar, I got a little jittery when I started about thinking about all the things I needed to put on the calendar. Then I realized that most of those things I needed to put on the calendar were really things that are happening in September. But then I realized that things that needed to go on the calendar for August were things that I needed to do to be ready for September and I crawled inside myself and turned off the light switch. I recently saw a posting from a Facebook friend who is also a therapist about the anxiety of starting a new school year and this is exactly how August feels.

What’s that fable about the ant and the grasshopper? Something about being lazy until the last minute and then starving to death during the winter because YOU DID NOT PREPARE?!?!?! It’s me. Hi. I’m the grasshopper. It’s me. Except it isn’t me. I’ve always been the ant in this story. Ask anyone who knew me in college or even my coworkers. If I am required to do a presentation at work, that presentation is prepared a month in advance. I am not a procrastinator, usually, but now I’m procrastinating all kinds of things. I’m procrastinating scheduling my yearly cholesterol check. I’m procrastinating scheduling that stupid colonoscopy. I did almost schedule an appointment with Michael’s dermatologist, but they aren’t taking new patients. So now I’m procrastinating on finding one who is taking new patients. All of the above requires talking to someone on the phone and I straight up toddler style stomp and whine do not want to do that.

My procrastination does not end with preventive health care, though. I’ve agreed to teach a four week beginning yoga series in September. I have to figure out how I’m going to cram my usual eight week course into four weeks without killing my students, but I haven’t really even thought about this until yesterday. I even sort of forgot about it. Then sometime around 3:00 AM yesterday, I woke up and said “Oh…wait. I’m teaching yoga next month on Tuesday evenings.” What have I been doing all summer? I for sure have not been taking advantage of the extra time allotted to me while the Cabbage and Michael are home doing all the chores. The chore fairies of summer are gone. The Cabbage is on vacation with their mom and Michael goes back to work next week. I think the biggest thing I accomplished over the summer was reacquainting myself with where middle C is on a key board.

On the last day of this month I will be hanging my photos in a downtown Starbucks. It’s happening. I checked. Which means I now have twenty three days to get my shit together. Today. TODAY. I ordered more prints. Prints that will need to be put on matting backs and into plastic sleeves. Prints that will not get here until the middle of this month. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!? The things I have left to do to be ready for September’s show is as follows:

• Figure out prices for selling

• Make name cards with price tags for all framed prints

• Figure out that whole Venmo QR code thing

• Sleeve up all non framed prints

• Throw up three or four more times and hyperventilate into a paper bag

Actually…that list isn’t so bad. Most of that list could be taken care of by the end of the week. The non-framed stuff doesn’t need to be really ready until October 6th. I think most of the anxiety is coming from inexperience. I have no idea what I’m doing or why I’m doing this. Imposter syndrome settled in hard when Chad told me that he’d only ever had one photo in an art showing before and here I am filling up a Starbucks. The not enough crowd has started jeering pretty loudly in my head even though everyone around me keeps telling me how great this going to be. Look, I want to believe the crowd who thinks this is great, but I am a fraud. I might as well be hanging coloring book pages on the wall.

Now to be fair, while writing all this, it stressed me out so bad that I called and made that cholesterol check appointment and I’ll get a referral for a dermatologist while I’m there. I also sent a spreadsheet of expenses for the show to Michael so he could help me decide on pricing. He is a math teacher. I’m taking advantage of this resource. I guess, what I’m learning is that I need to write about freaking out over not doing the things I need to do in order for me to actually do the things I need to do. I’m not the ant, but I’m not quite the grasshopper.

I’m more of a grub worm kind of a bug that just digs down deeper in the winter months.

THE TIME BETWEEN SECONDS

Michael and I rode our scooters out to Lees Summit on Sunday to get our hairs cut. It is not a particularly far distance, maybe fifteen minutes from the house if you are taking the highways, but I don’t do highways when I’m on the scooter. We stick to the smaller side streets, which turn into back country roads. There is a lake and plenty of forested land between our house and our hairdresser’s. It’s a nice scooter ride. As we made our way home, I noticed a doe and her fawn bounding across a yard to my left. They reached the road just as we were nearing and we had to stop so the two could cross. When they reached the edge on the other side, the doe paused, one foot hovering and her head turned looking straight at us, while her fawn darted into the thick brush. Once he disappeared, the fawn quickly followed after. The whole moment was just mere seconds, but the seconds felt stretched out and everything was crystal clear. It was like a dance of quick, quick, slow, slow.

That evening, I wiped off my dry erase calendar clearing away the month of July. Michael moaned as he saw what I was doing and said “Not August! Not the end of summer!”. He goes back to school in few weeks and only has a week and half left to sleep in late and do what he wants. It’s funny to hear him say that summer is over when we are still having hundred degree days. Our August calendar doesn’t look too different from July’s. Still busy. Still filled up with events and appointments. A little bit of travel. Most of the things have been clustered into that week and a half. Then we are back to our regularly scheduled program.

When Josephine and I leave the house in the mornings for our walk, the sky is now dark with only a hint of light in the East. The sun is shifting and preparing for the next season regardless of temperatures. Tuesday morning, as we started onto the side walk of the park at the end of our street, I saw a fox sitting on the side walk at the bottom of the hill. He turned to look at me and then darted off into the tall brush and trees that line the park. Quick, Quick, slow, slow. Slow, slow, quick, quick. These are the dance steps of August and I’m in the process of modulating the music to slow the speed of the song that we dance to. We are traveling to St. Louis to see Andrew Bird next week. I am stuck with the idea of slow dances, the kind where you rest your head on your partners shoulder and just sway gently from side to side.

That’s how I want summer to end, in a gentle swaying motion. I want to ease into our regularly scheduled routine, like maybe getting up an hour later to go grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. Maybe I will get organized enough to start doing weekend chores on weeknights. I want to gradually need to add layers for warmth. No sudden movements, just a gradual shift onto the next season.

Quick, Quick, slow, slow.