Progress
People deal with stress in all different ways.
Today I took a long walk. On the way I stopped at the Mudhouse. I walked up to the counter and ordered a double espresso ristretto. The barista worked on it for about five minutes, apologizing, saying the shots were pulling long today, but he wanted to get it right. Finally he handed me my little demitasse cup, filled with two ounces of espresso, beautiful speckled crema, miniature spoon alongside. I poured a line of sugar across the top and stirred it in, then drank it: five sips. Perfect.
Yesterday before I went to take my property exam I cleaned my bathroom. I planned this. I built in time to my morning so that I would be able to leave for my property exam with a clean bathroom. What can I say? It helped.
There have been a lot of those times in the past few days, times when I've had a feeling that I needed to do something very particular to feel okay. My anxiety has been bad. I've always worried a lot, but this isn't the same thing as worrying. It's a physical thing. And while long walks and perfect espresso and clean bathrooms help, they don't fix it. So next week I'm going to take a break from studying for con law and go find myself someone to talk to about fixing the problem. I'm willing to work at it. It's just figuring out how to work at it — what, specifically, to do — that's exhausting. And then I don't have the energy for doing the stuff other than the stuff I'm trying to do to help the anxiety. And that stuff — the stuff I don't have the energy for — is the stuff I like.
I went clothes shopping today too. I bought, among other things, silver flip-flops. I don't know how anyone wears flip-flops, but I thought I'd give it a shot and see if they still hurt my toes just as much as they used to. And now I'm going to do something else that, historically speaking, I hate: go on an epic grocery shopping trip. Because I need to have enough food in the house so that I can eat when I get hungry without having to be creative all the time.
I've taken two exams now, and I'm taking my third tomorrow morning, leaving just one (yes, of course, con law) for next week. I've actually handled this exam thing very well, both in terms of planning and of execution.
All right. Grocery shopping can be forestalled no longer, or it won't happen at all and I'll be eating Nutella out of the jar again. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Today I took a long walk. On the way I stopped at the Mudhouse. I walked up to the counter and ordered a double espresso ristretto. The barista worked on it for about five minutes, apologizing, saying the shots were pulling long today, but he wanted to get it right. Finally he handed me my little demitasse cup, filled with two ounces of espresso, beautiful speckled crema, miniature spoon alongside. I poured a line of sugar across the top and stirred it in, then drank it: five sips. Perfect.
Yesterday before I went to take my property exam I cleaned my bathroom. I planned this. I built in time to my morning so that I would be able to leave for my property exam with a clean bathroom. What can I say? It helped.
There have been a lot of those times in the past few days, times when I've had a feeling that I needed to do something very particular to feel okay. My anxiety has been bad. I've always worried a lot, but this isn't the same thing as worrying. It's a physical thing. And while long walks and perfect espresso and clean bathrooms help, they don't fix it. So next week I'm going to take a break from studying for con law and go find myself someone to talk to about fixing the problem. I'm willing to work at it. It's just figuring out how to work at it — what, specifically, to do — that's exhausting. And then I don't have the energy for doing the stuff other than the stuff I'm trying to do to help the anxiety. And that stuff — the stuff I don't have the energy for — is the stuff I like.
I went clothes shopping today too. I bought, among other things, silver flip-flops. I don't know how anyone wears flip-flops, but I thought I'd give it a shot and see if they still hurt my toes just as much as they used to. And now I'm going to do something else that, historically speaking, I hate: go on an epic grocery shopping trip. Because I need to have enough food in the house so that I can eat when I get hungry without having to be creative all the time.
I've taken two exams now, and I'm taking my third tomorrow morning, leaving just one (yes, of course, con law) for next week. I've actually handled this exam thing very well, both in terms of planning and of execution.
All right. Grocery shopping can be forestalled no longer, or it won't happen at all and I'll be eating Nutella out of the jar again. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
posted by Gwen at 6:06 PM
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