Surrender, Dorothy

You Seem Happy

My parents and sister were down last weekend. Right before they left, my mom looked at me and said, "You seem happy." And she's right -- I am happy fairly consistently right now.

I would say I'm in a good place, only I no longer believe in good places and bad places, only places. One might think I'm happy because my novel just came out, but in actuality, I got totally anxious and angsty when I signed my contract, so good things happening for me professionally don't necessarily translate into good things happening to my mental health. I'm sure that seems ridiculous, but it happens all the time. Look at how many people -- particularly creative people -- fall apart a little right after they get a break. I think change is hard no matter what type of change it is, because it's fucking scary. Putting out a novel means I have to up my game next time, and people will read it and maybe hate it and talk about it -- so many things for my anxiety to grab onto.

I'm actually shocked I'm happy right now. Even though that sounds ridiculous.

Last Saturday I woke up snarly and snarled at Beloved and the little angel before I took her to ballet. As I was sitting there waiting for ballet to be done, I realized how familiar that snarl had felt, how I used to an extremely frequent snarler, and how I had committed to myself and my husband a few years ago to really stop snarling and try to look at the world more optimistically. I'm by nature melancholy, and it's a real effort for me to instantly see the good instead of the bad. However, I've noticed the more I work at it, the easier it is. When I snarled, he responded with, "Why are you yelling at me?" and I didn't know the answer to that question. I think I surprised him because I have not snarled quite like that in so long.

I sat there worrying I'd introduced a new tone into our house that was going to creep back into our lives. I texted him, called him, made sure he knew I didn't mean it and wanted to start the day again. And then we did, and my family showed up, and my mother's takeaway is that I seem happy.

I've learned to work toward happy. I still have mood swings, sometimes very bad ones, but I try not to show my irritability or randomly thrash those around me when my heart beats fast and the hair on the back of my neck stands up for absolutely no reason but my body chemistry. I pray with my daughter, and we talk about the best part of the trip instead of what went wrong, and I pet the cats and wish for the thousandth time I could invent a purring, warm neck wrap to wear around when they aren't available. I try to take advantage of sunny corners the minute I see them, even if it's just for a few minutes. I try to do one thing at a time and give that one thing my full attention.

And even then, sometimes it still doesn't work. Sometimes I find myself deep breathing and staring at the wall without knowing why, and in those times I've learned to ask myself what human need could be met right in that moment that would make me feel better. Am I cold? Am I stiff? Am I thirsty? Am I tired? Would I like some music, less music? Are my clothes itchy?

I tell people I spend as much time managing my anxiety as some people do managing diabetes or asthma. I no longer look at these little breaks as wasting time, because that makes me more anxious, and the faster I can get things under control, the more productive the day will actually be, the more creativity I will be able to bring to my work. If I am not anxious, I won't foist that tone on my household.

And so when my mother told me I seemed happy, I actually took it as a compliment more than an observation. I haven't always been a happy person, but I'm working toward that. I want to be a happy old person one of these days.

 

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• The Obvious Game review and giveaway on What If No One's Watching?
• The Obvious Game excerpt and giveaway on A Dream Within a Dream
• The Obvious Game excerpt on Book Maven's Picks
• Interview on I Like These Books
• Review on author Kelly Hashway's blog

What to Do About Your Pain in the Neck

It's returned, yes it has, the neck and upper back pain. This is slightly different than the constant I-work-a-desk-job-and-always-mouse-with-the-same-hand upper back/pinchy nerve sort of pain that I've had for years. This is the I've-been-cowering-like-a-dog-with-my-shoulders-around-my-ears pain I get when I'm holding my stress in my shoulders. You could bounce a quarter off any part of my upper back right now.

I work at home. I have an actual desk. On the actual desk is my work laptop, and behind that is our home desktop computer, which is one of those crazy-huge Macs that we got refurbished (side note: refurbished is the way to go) about five years ago. Unfortunately for me, I can see my reflection in the Mac. It's unfortunate because since I work from home, I usually don't shower and get ready until after I've worked out over my lunch hour, so I'm looking all nasty most of the time in that reflection. But I can also see where my shoulders are, and it's like I push them down and then five seconds later, they're floating back up to my ears without me even knowing it.

There are things that help, and I know this. One of them is stretching. Once when it got really bad, I ended up in physical therapy, and so I went looking for PT stretches online and I found this list of stretches for the neck and upper back. It takes a ridiculously long amount of time to do these stretches properly, which is why I don't wanna. But they help, they really do; it's totally worth it. So I thought I'd share them here in case you, too, have a major pain in your neck, or will because you have to spend a few days straight with your extended families next week.

You're welcome.

Having Your Health

One thing about social media: It teaches you you're not the only person with problems. My connection to hundreds if not thousands of other human beings each day has made me more grateful for the good things in my life and more tolerant for the bad. No, everyone else is not sitting around on unicorn-fur couches sipping ambrosia -- they have cancer and bankruptcy and also new babies and cute puppies and lottery winnings. We are all in it together, for good and for bad.

As Beloved's job situation stretches on, I've found myself in several doctor's offices making sure the thing I have now -- my health -- is intact. Last week I went to a dermatologist to get my first-ever full-body skin cancer check. Basal skin cancer seems to be all the rage in my hometown for the farming crew, and I let my fair-skinned self turn lobster red way more times than I should have in my youth. I also tanned before prom, just sayin'. Luckily this time I came out clean, and I made an appointment to get checked again around my birthday every year.

Today I'm going in for a well-woman appointment. I haven't had one in years. Unfortunately, I was inspired to do so after a dear friend lost her cousin to sudden and unexpected girl cancer. Like two weeks unexpected. Though I don't even know this woman, I'm taken aback by the speed in which she was taken down, and it scared me enough to immediately book a Pap smear. I tell you this so if you are a woman, you will be sure to get one, too. So many girl cancers can be treated if caught early.

I'm not perfect with my health -- none of us are. And I try not to think too hard about my health, because I have anxiety disorder and if I think too hard about all the crazy-ass things that could give me cancer or brain damage or whatever, I'll freak out. It's so much easier to avoid breaking a bone than getting a terminal disease. I have a close relative who is dying of something completely awful right now that scares the shit out of me.

I try not to think about that.

But there are some easy things that I can think about, and one of them is skin cancer checks and another is well woman checks.

And then I'll go back to my job and hope everything else in my life works out just fine.