Yesterday I said to a friend that I was having a rough day. She asked what was wrong and I said that I just didn’t really know what to do with my time. She is a counselor and has anxiety herself, so she totally understood. She said “Idle time is anxiety’s playground.” And this couldn’t be more accurate. When I keep busy, my anxiety doesn’t have a chance to take hold. But when I don’t have much going on, anxious thoughts frolic through my brain. I felt compelled to make the image above to show my Anxiety having way too much fun these last few days.
Yesterday I had planned to go to Costco, but my husband had said he wanted to go with me. I told him I wanted to go at 1:00 because it would be slightly less crowded, but still give me time to get to the school to pick up the kids. At 12:15 he started to head out on a run. When I said something about Costco to him he looked disappointed and said “Oh, yeah. You wanted to do that today.” Being the people pleaser that I am, I said I could wait until the next day to go, but absolutely could not wait longer, as I would need some things to make our dinner. It really wasn’t a big deal to wait.
Except the one productive thing I’d planned to do was now canceled and I had nothing to replace it with. I hate feeling like I’ve wasted a day, but that seems to be all I feel lately. Other than driving my kids to and from school, what is the point of me even getting out of bed each day?
Now I was feeling unproductive and a storm was approaching right at dismissal time. I had told the teacher that my kids were walkers, regardless of the weather (I meet them behind the school in a church parking lot to avoid carpool). However, the school decided not to let walkers out of the building because of lightning. They did not tell us this. So a large group of parents was waiting in the rain for students they would not release. We even called the front office and they took down student names to release, but changed their minds and decided we would have to go to the front of the building or through carpool. At this point, I had been waiting for an hour and it was no longer raining!
My kids have guitar lessons on Tuesdays at 4:00, which should be plenty of time with their 3:00 dismissal, but because the of the storm and the school’s poor communication, we were late. Thankfully, I have a good relationship with their teacher (our music minister at church), so this didn’t stress me out quite as much as it could have.
Another source of (stupid) anxiety this week has been my workout. I have been working out with Camp Gladiator for years and when the pandemic hit they started offering virtual training. I’ve switched to all virtual because I don’t feel comfortable in person and it’s more convenient to work out at home anyway. I’ve found a trainer I like on M/W/F that always gives the modifications I need for my wrist (I broke it two years ago and it continues to cause pain if I use it in certain ways). Unfortunately, she caught covid last week and has had a sub. The first day of the sub I saw a stranger and immediately logged off. It was the first day of school and I just couldn’t mentally handle someone new. The next time, I had a very rough night and knowing that she wouldn’t be there I jumped on the excuse to miss again. On Monday I pushed myself to give the sub a try. And I did not like it. I ended up getting off early. Knowing there would likely be the same sub again today, I searched for an alternative and found someone to try this morning. I even spoke up (in the chat box) about needing wrist modifications.
The workout itself was fine. There were quite a lot of burpees (which I can’t do) and other exercises that required wrists, but most of the time I was able to do my own modifications if she forgot to give one. At one point the trainer said something about having twins. I’d thought her name felt familiar and I wondered if she was someone I’d once known from a twins group I was in. I stayed after for a bit and asked her. And then felt like a total idiot when she told me no and looked irritated at the question. Now I wish I hadn’t said anything at all and stuck to never saying anything like I usually do. I’m pretty sure I will never attend her workouts again.
My kids have been getting annoyed with the morning carpool line, so they asked if I could get there early (before the line starts forming) and let them wait outside for the doors to open. I’m all for no carpool line, so I told them it was completely dependent on them getting out the door early enough to do that. And they did it! Even with the drizzle, they had no desire to sit in the carpool line. I guess it gives them as much anxiety as it does me.
Oh, and after yesterday’s dismissal fiasco, my daughter asked if she could take the flip phone we have for emergencies with her to school so that she can call me if anything like that happens again. I’d had the same thought, so this morning I made sure it was charged and showed her how to call me and had her turn it off so it wouldn’t ring in class (we still get multiple calls a day for the person that used to own the number and we’ve had it for almost a year!). I know that will help ease my anxiety as well. My son would prefer I get him a “real phone” (we keep telling him the flip phone is real, but apparently to him it needs a touch screen to be “real”), but his sister just wants a way to get ahold of me in unusual situations like yesterday.
I had plans with friends to walk this morning, but the rain canceled that. So instead my Anxiety is having a field day reliving yesterday and this morning and giving me a hundred things to wish I’d done differently as well as coming up with scenarios that could go wrong later today or tomorrow. Yea. :-/ If only my Anxiety had the sense to come in out of the rain…
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