AHEM!! And I quote from yesterday's entry:
I'm at ease with myself lately...
What the hell happened overnight?? Who sent the Crabby Fairy over and turned me into Mr. 'I'm Gonna Stab Your Eyeballs'? ACK! Every little thing was setting me off today. I noticed it within five minutes of hitting the road this morning - I was swearing at the guy who baaaarely cut me off getting onto the highway. I immediately stopped, re-tuned myself and bit my tongue, but the day continued to be a bear for no apparent reason. I guess the ups and downs are still happening more sharply than I anticipated they would be.
Speaking of biting my tongue, this is from a friend of mine on Facebook: "I speak my mind because it hurts to bite my tongue." I kinda like that.
Unfortunately, biting my tongue was the theme today. Part of it was due to sheer boredom, which... isn't really boredom, right?! Work is incredibly slow lately due to the holidays and I found myself with that bored feeling in the pit of my stomach. Of course, after writing about boredom last night, I spun my mind around and said, "Woah, woah, woah... what's this all about?" And it was anxiety again. As I sat at my desk, eyes getting heavy, my mind started to wander and I began thinking about the weekend. Money, moving, furniture, storage, etc.
It came to a head when I was with a coworker who was having her own anxiety issues. She gets frustrated very easily and is sometimes hard to talk to. You have to coddle her a little... "Hey, hey... you're doing a great job. It's not your fault that their entire system crashed, even though you weren't reading the documentation and shouldn't have installed PokerStars on their database server. Really, it's okay." Anyway, I was getting incredibly terse with her today. I found myself with a hand in my pocket (no jokes please) holding the charm my friend gave me that says, "Take a deep breath." I was just about to give it to my coworker to calm her down when it hit me...
*I* need to take a deep breath!
Unbelievable. I was ready to point out the speck in her eye, ignoring the log in my own (that's how the saying goes, right?). So, I did. I took a really deep breath, probably spooking her, and we took care of the client. In the end, all parties were appreciative and my blood pressure dropped a few points.
It's this black hole in my head that makes me fear relapse. All it takes is one lousy day to drop back into the rut. The elephant is so hard to retrain and there are days when my rider just says, "F it!" and let's the elephant run. But, hey - try, try again. When I was having coffee last week, a friend of mine brought up the topic of tattoos. While I've never gotten one, we talked about getting something meaningful, something to remind us of our true focus during tough times. On a day like today, I could look at it and say, "Oops, I need to relax a little bit." I thought about the movie 'Memento', one of my favorite Christopher Nolan flicks. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out. Guy Pearce is hunting for the person who's killed his wife, but he suffers from short-term memory loss. To remind himself of the path he's on, he tattoos notes and clues to himself each day. When he awakes in the morning, each time with no memory of the previous day, he has these tattoos to show him the right direction.
Interesting. I guess his elephant was on the run, too. Thankfully, I had a reminder tonight to slow way down and it was far less painful than needling myself. I was passing a Christmas light show and thought, "Ya know... my inner child would probably like this." I pulled over and smiled for a while. It was exactly what I needed.
Hmm... maybe I will get a tattoo. Something on my wrist that reminds me - "Treat your inner child." It made all the difference. In the end, my day wasn't that bad. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't that bad, either. And tomorrow's a new day, a fresh start.
"Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start."
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