Month: December 2015

I was playing around with the scheduling system and by accident posted a post with this title and format. Sorry!

Last night I stayed at home, which is not entirely surprising since I do that a lot. I stayed home alone though, which is not something I normally do.

I was really scared to do it because I have fear and anxiety staying the night alone, but I did it and it wasn’t even that bad. I didn’t stay up for hours in anxiety or fear this time, but it was good.

I skyped with my mom for hours, and then I watched some videos and fell asleep, slept in really late (which was phenomenal). I didn’t have the yummiest or coolest dinner, but I was able to eat as early as I wanted. The kitchen was clean by 8, I had eaten by 6, and all in all it wasn’t half bad.

I enjoyed myself more than I would. It was nice to have some space and quiet time. I was able to sit on the couch and watch netflix. I didn’t worry about the correct time for dinner, I just ate it when I wanted. I went to sleep when I wanted.

It was nice. Definitely not an every day kind of thing. But it was a nice refreshing getting to know me again thing.

I didn’t like  to do things alone.

But the other day I ate alone. The day before that I walked outside alone. I can do things alone, I am not a hermit. I just don’t like to do them.

But I did like it. I liked not being rushed to decide what I wanted, I liked listening to an audio book as I walked around outside.

I found I did like it. Today I am alone, and while it is scary as hell, I like it. I like the silence, I like writing this blog post, I like it.

I don’t want to be alone all the time. But I do want to do more things alone. Because it always felt that I couldn’t, but I want to know I can do things alone, so that it becomes a choice to do things alone.

It shouldn’t be I don’t do things alone out of fear, it should be out of a choice. I want to know I would be alright to do it alone, but that I don’t because I don’t want to.

I can be a horrible person to live with. I am impatient, can be very mean, and am very particular about a lot of things. I know I have made you stress out about things you never would have, didn’t even know could have, and never knew existed. I have that way on some people.

But I never want to corrupt you, the very you of youness. I want you always to stay quirky, and funny, and making jokes when I’m angry (even when they are not funny and when they make me scowl, because I’m trying to learn to be less angry and more funny). I want you to always take things relaxingly, to not make a big deal of things, to go with the flow.

This isn’t to say don’t tell me when you’re going to do the laundry, because I want to know, believe me I do. But I don’t want my craziness to make you crazy too. Because I like that you’re not crazy. Believe it or not, you balance out a bit of the crazy inside me. And I need that in you.

I need the grounding, the jokes, the very essence of you that seems different from me. I need you to challenge me, to teach me about things I don’t want to, to help me be patient. I need that bit of you.

I can’t tell you I’ll change, although I think I’ve come a long way. But I can tell you I am trying to be less crazy, less stressing to myself, and more happy. That’s what this whole blog is about. It’s destressing to write it. I can always promise I’ll try. Try to be nicer, try to worry less about the laundry every time I see a sock in our laundry bin because you know I hate it.

Dear partner person. While you have flaws and things that drive me up the walls, you are you. And I never would be in a relationship with you, if I didn’t like you.

I recently read an article that resonated with me because it seemed to describe me to a T.

These are my reactions to this article.

1.  I am a high strung, kind of intense, a bit scary, and impatient person. I do have flaws, I know of them (some of them) and they are big and make me a very sweet person who can instantly turn into a raging monster.
2. I have always thought, yes I am being efficient,not impatient. It’s something I’ve thought since I was a child. But it’s not only that. Patience is also about respect, not just time and efficiency. Does that sound older and wiser to you? I hope so because to me it sounds like a monumental break through. Patience is about respecting someone’s opinions, flaws, limitations. It’s about letting that person speak, even if they speak slowly. It’s about respecting their flaws in that they have five thousand pockets in their bag and can’t find the one thing they have to give to you. It’s also about being in the now. This is the moment, there is no other, expecting the next does not actually make it go any faster (although time travel is a thing, right?).
3. I really do hate being late. When I am alone I am always early. In fact for class I am usually 30 minutes early. I like it, I can be there, sit on the floor, relax, and read a book. Being early makes me happy. It also makes me only marginally late when I get stuck on a train and they won’t let us leave the train for half and hour and I am still only five minutes late. Earliness is good and it wins. But when I am with others, I cannot always be early, or on time. It bothers me, but it’s inevitable. I can’t make everyone move, or make them be on time (although I wish I could sometimes). And I need to accept it.
4. I do live by to do lists. My life is to do lists. I have to do lists for every day, for books I want to read, for blog posts I want to write. Lists. My life is a list. This is a list. Meta list within a list.
5. I am very goal oriented. I like goals. That’s why I have lists, because they are a list of goals I want to achieve. I want to have achieve a blog post every M, W, F and to achieve that goal I need a list. To me, these things are one in the same.
6. It is very hard for me to relax. I am a very anxious person, and there are always thoughts in my head. I carry around a little notebook so I can write down the fragments that pop up. But there are moments when I can relax: right after I finished a goal, when I read at night time, when I’m early to places, sometimes when I do the dishes, with friends wine and food.
7. I get stressed out like it’s nobody’s business. My life is a series of stress and anxiety sometimes. I have anxious habits out the wazoo.
8. I am emotional when my goals don’t get met, when I don’t know what I’m going to eat, or when the laundry will get done (I am a miserable person to live with when this happens because I oscillate between tears and anger and passive aggressiveness) but I also, when the system works, means that the house is tidy (in my own chaotic way). So I’m not all bad I suppose. I want things to work out the way I planned it, when it doesn’t, I get upset. I’m not one of those chill, move with the flow type of person. My partner is, and it’s a beautiful thing to see, but sometimes I wonder if my neuroticism is wearing off and corrupting that. Partner person, don’t ever change that about you. So I’m trying to be a slightly zen type of neurotic person.
9. I constantly ruminate over things, what to do, to make to do lists in my head. There are always thoughts, thoughts of what to do next, what I’m not doing. etc.
10. I can be very competitive and a very sore loser. It is the way that is.
11. Other notes: I really like and need my sleep. I become a very angry mountain wild feral bear when I am sleepy.

The End.

I approach things with the mindset that if I put enough effort into them, I can achieve them. So in that sense, for most things I get what I want simply because I work for them all the time. For example, I work for grades I want.

But there are things I cannot alter. I cannot change if I get a job or not, if I win something or not. These are things I can do nothing about.

And my alternate has been, to not want them. It has been too painful to want something very badly and not get it. So I approach things either by detaching myself from them, or just convincing myself I don’t want it.

I say no I don’t want this at all, I don’t want to win. Or I approach it saying, well it doesn’t matter if we win.

And this has worked for me, surprisingly. But it means I focus a lot on what I can do, and almost ignore what I can’t control. Which isn’t exactly healthy. There are plenty of things I can’t control, which is essentially the scary fact that keeps me.

The idea is to focus on the things you can change, and accept the things you cannot.

That’s tremendously hard for me. I really like control over my life, and to give it up is something that is hard for me. Yet always at the back of my head, the idea of giving up control (not having to plan everything, take care of things) is alluring. It does seem nice to think, what if I didn’t have all this responsibility, this anxiety, this stress.

I wonder sometimes if I would be a different person, divorced from this A type personality. Or if this A type personality is all there is. And without it I would be a blob.

I know you can mediate and yoga and ‘chill yourself out’, but I wonder if that would really make me happy, or really be true to myself? Or maybe it would be.

My mind is always running, and I feel like I constantly am slipping sometimes, trying to grasp a fragment of a thought before it floats away, and that, in and of itself, provokes my anxiety.

All I know is the things I can try to change. I can try yoga. I know I’ve said this a lot, and I write it in my book everyday. But I can make a very real commitment to do this. Make a, let’s just say, list of very real commitments.

And even if it’s not to ‘chill myself out’ I can agree that yoga is a nice healthy thing I enjoy to do, I can commit to that.