I woke up this morning all thinky. Not totally in my head but thinky. Just chewing on a maybe.
A friend described the feeling of anxiety as living perpetually at the point where boiling water starts to bubble. I think that's called simmering. And what I've realized is that I don't really experience simmering for very long. I crank it up shockingly fast.
It takes me roughly 20 minutes to walk to work. I cross a lot of streets. Lots of hurrying to make a light. Those timer things that they have on crosswalks now are one of my new favorite things. Can I make it down the rest of the block in 27 seconds? 26? 25? Rush rush.
And even with all the rushing and the counting of seconds and the crossing of streets, I stayed in my head enough to cook a small fret into a proper stew. The maybe this means X and maybe that means Y bubbled way past the boiling point. By the time I arrived at work the state of my mind was a fried lump of charred horrible.
I sat down in this unfortunately dull class we're taking, one that I knew would not distract me. And Tej looked at me and whispered, "What on earth is going on?"
And it wasn't until I'd said what I was thinking that I realized it wasn't even such a big deal. I'd just turned it into one in my head. The fact is that I don't know if anything means anything. I'm not even sure what I think.
She said, "Holy crap! You got that far in your head in your short walk to work?"
Once she said it like that it even impressed me.
bless your busy brain! It's good to know someone else does the same sort of thing...and just think, at least your brain works, which is more than we can say for a lot of people!
ReplyDeleteOhmygosh - was it one of those times that you go through an entire relationship, from first date to resulting divorce years later, all in your head? I used to love those, because you could totally "try on" the relationship and talk yourself out of it, before you had really committed to getting a pedi and shaving your legs for the 2nd date.
ReplyDeleteI tend to do that in bed, on nights when it's imperative that I get a good night's sleep.
ReplyDelete"I can work myself into a tizzy over the most minor of things in twenty seconds, Alex."
moosie - You totally made me giggle with that! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSusan - Yes, kind of along those lines. I make myself crazy with that.
FK - Argh! I do a lot of that as well. Very unhelpful.