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.

THINGS I SHOULD BE DOING RIGHT NOW

Hint of Fall

"Hint of Fall"

If this were going to be a list kind of entry, the first three items of things I should be doing right now would be 1. writing 2. writing and 3. writing. Writing may even be number four on the list. Then number five would probably be to drink more water because even though I tend to only drink water, I doubt I drink enough water. I'm sure there are other things I should be doing right now (like not slouching, I am totally slouching), but I'm not here to write a list. I'm here to write! Ha! Right.

Seriously. I have unfinished things. I have ideas that should be expanded on. I have letters that I've been meaning to sit down and write. There are words out there that I need to gather up and corral. Instead I am spending my spare moments looking around the internet at nothing in particular. When I am at home, I am on the couch playing Sudoku or coloring in my new coloring book. Completely random side note. I bought my coloring book at Powell's Bookstore in Portland. When I asked the young man checking my bag if he could tell me where the adult coloring books were, he gave me a sly look and asked "Do you mean a coloring book or an "adult" coloring book?" and raised his eyebrows at the adult part. They have pornographic coloring books for adults. I regret that I didn't even go to that section and look at them. Also, that young man was covered in glitter. I love Portland so much.

An hour here. Fifteen minutes there. Twenty minutes in between this and that. All of those minutes are minutes I am wasting. Then I feel really bad about myself. Then I remember how Benjamin Franklin made himself a time management schedule because he had a hard time keeping his time in order. Benjamin Franklin couldn't even keep himself from the distractions of colonial life to get as much done as he would have liked. Then I don't feel so bad about myself, but I am not even close to being a Benjamin Franklin. The good news is that's OK, because I don't really want to be a Benjamin Franklin. Do you see how good I am at wasting time? 

Sunday, Michael and I were making our second trip of the weekend out to IKEA (you don't even) and the radio got flipped to NPR just as the Moth Radio hour was starting. I was all "Ooooh! I love this show! We should listen to this! Michael I think you'd really enjoy it! I want to tell a story on the Moth!" My brain went "wait. what? You do not want to tell a story on the radio." Michael asked what sort of criteria was required and I couldn't even tell him. I said "You know. A story. A true story about something." I really had no idea what the criteria are for Moth stories, but my mouth was saying that I wanted to do one. I don't think everything through. Except once I said it out loud I knew that this was something I wanted to do because I have a story. I have a great story! 

I just need to write it down first.