It's Happening Again

It's happening again. The anxiety. My brain spins off its axis and whirls ahead of me. I sprint to catch up, grasping desperately for my runaway thoughts, but my legs turn to mush. They feel the way grandma's leftover jello looks hours after we've abandoned the Thanksgiving table. I'm left behind my frenzied brain as it pirouettes into the past, the present and future, alighting on whatever causes it the most agony. Life! Death! Good! Bad! Sincere! False! Real! Fake! Try! Quit! Succeed! Fail! Save Money! Pay The Bills! Am I a Good Person! Self Hate! Lazy! Talentless! No Willpower! Fat! Lose Weight! I've heard of these anxiety attacks, if that's what this is. The words bandied about in casual conversation, as common as ultra modern phrases like 'my therapist says' and 'anti-depression pills'. What's wrong with me? Everyone seems to live their lives, effortlessly gliding along, afloat on air mattresses of self esteem powered by reservoirs of raw talent. Yet here I flail, wildly dog paddling in my frantic efforts to keep my heavy head above water. Do others perceive me as I see them? Self assured, confidently striding through life, or do they see through my finely honed facade of fearlessness? Are others like me? Filled with self doubt. Haphazardly slapping together bricks of resolve mortared with false confidence to keep their swampy souls from flooding the neighborhoods the perfect people call home. You don't need to wear your pain like a badge, reveling in your suffering self. But let me peer into a crack in your armor every now and again. Invite me to a peep show where one of your flaws is the headliner. I need to know you're human too.

Everybody Wants To Be Famous

If there's one thing reality TV has taught the masses, it's that everybody wants to be famous.  And today, more than ever before, just about anyone can get their name in print.  As this blog demonstrates, you can even create your own website.  Just about anybody can snap some snazzy pictures of themselves and pretend to be whoever and whatever they want on the internet.   

So. Am I one of these fools?  Creating this blog to see my name in print?  Maybe.  I don't really know.  All I do know is I love to write.  Am I a fantastic writer?  I don't  know because the only people that have ever read my stories are family and friends.  Of course they're going to say "Fantastic!  Great job!"  What else would they say?  The goal of this blog is to see what people think about my stuff.  It will open me up to criticism.  Call me talented or call me a hack, just so long as you call me.  

I just want to write about my life, and hopefully that will cross paths with your life.  The daily experiences that make me laugh, or have me locking myself in the restroom stall at work, trying to keep the girl next to me from hearing my sobs.   The trials of life, large and small, that all women deal with. 

Sure, I know it's been done.   But not in a way that made me do a little jig and shriek 'that is so true'.  Candace Bushnell and her Sex and The City was fun.  But ultimately I couldn't relate to those snotty bitches who care a little too much about the Manolo Blahnik wearing glitterati.  They are The Beautiful People and though I appreciate the frank discussions about the various types of sex and the depiction of single women kicking ass in the working world, Carrie Bradshaw's shallow struggle through the ocean of New York men left me shivering on the shore.  And give me a break with the wardrobe that often resembled a streetwalker from Times Square.  Who wears that shit?  Save it for the runway girlfriend.  So what about Bridget Jones?  She's one of us!  She battles the bottle and the bulge with her quaint little 'alcohol unit' tally and feeble attempts at exercise.  The problem with Bridget's story is it's fiction, and has a happy ending.  Bridget's just too cute, her quirky mistakes a bit too adorable.  A little too girly-girl for my taste.  And I'm not sure if happy endings exist yet.  If they do, don't I have to make it to the end to discover they do in fact exist?   If I'm still married to The Surge at 90 years old, sharing a joint on the porch of our lakeside log cabin, a few dogs wrestling around the backyard, then I might say that yes, happy endings do exist.  But I won't know for another 60 years.  So the struggle continues.