anxiety, home, stuff

Never Moving Again

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

Due to a confluence of factors, I haven’t written in forever. First and foremost of the obstacles is twofold; I moved, and I currently have not purchased an internet service as a social experiment. The moving itself was excruciatingly drawn out, lapsed two weekends where I was committed to other things with no time to physically relocate items, and coincided with some heavy relational stuff (annoying, pesky emotions, ugh). My cat children were FREAKED out and though it took them at least a week to get used to the new place and stop being so on edge, it took me even longer.

As for the internet, I know you’re judging and saying to yourself that this is a thing I need in my home. Admittedly, it is inconvenient not to be able to watch Netflix in my home. However, I am looking at a computer screen all day, so I’m making do with my data plan for what I need to accomplish online and my actual hobbies (writing letters, reading/audiobooks, and – new one! – essential oils). It is completely okay. At least, for now, when it is still passably warm to sit outside on campus on my lunch break and watch The Good Place. It is inevitable (especially since I am never moving again) that I’ll get it installed, but it’s an experiment in the meantime.

And yeah, now that I have been in there a month and a half and everything has its place and I’m used to the light in the mornings and the weird sounds the doors make, my place is perfect. Of course there are minor improvements I want to make, but this apartment is MINE and only mine, for the first time ever. That is crazy! This time last year, I could only have dreamed this, and I am grateful and excited that it is real and here. Stability, here I come! Independence! Other positive nouns!

This dwelling is lovely and perfect, and because it is great and the move was torturous, I never want to move again.

Ever.

Moving is the worst! Touching EVERYTHING I own, which is not a ton because I am only one person, but yet still somehow neverending, the packing, the unpacking, the lifting of all the heavy items, the inevitable shoddy packing that leads to something unessential breaking…. That was all too much already, but I also had no furniture, so whenever I found one item I wanted, I needed to acquire a vehicle and a human to help me obtain that one item. Rinse and repeat, for every single piece of furniture I needed. I am blessed to have amazing friends, two of whom live a neighborly distance away, and they were fantastic. I still felt guilty asking them to take their time to help me, and I felt sad that there is no reliable, caring human man around to help me with what I need. Acquiring what I needed sparked HIGH anxiety and an EXTREME sense of aloneness. Every single time.

Ok, so clearly NEVER is an exaggeration. But it was all so heavy! And I didn’t help myself out with the timing. The first weekend after I got the keys, I worked all weekend, at our yearly event that is one of my favorite days of the whole year (yay!). After that shift (TMI alert) I went to Urgent Care for a UTI (OUCH). The next weekend, my best friend visited for a musical festival we bought tickets to in the first quarter of the year and were hugely looking forward to (yay!). That weekend, since it was on the beach, I wore flip flops, and ended up getting plantar fascitis (OUCH OUCH OUCH).

The two mental health days I took during this time were true to their names. I was going to lose my mind, and my body was protesting how hard it was working. My feet literally gave up and just told me to lay low for a while. Driving to purchase a couch and loveseat on what would come to be the day I learned to measure the doorway for any potential furniture acquisitions, with aching feet and a desire to have somewhere for me, my cats and our guests to sit, the song “One Foot” by Walk the Moon played on the radio. Kismet!

I only had one working foot at the time! But all I had to do was put one foot in front of the other. It was a good reminder. I got through the day due to A+ friendos who helped me lift the love seat and didn’t (verbally or in my presence, though I wouldn’t blame them 🙂 judge me or criticize when the couch would not fit through the doorway.

Long story short, I love my friends and my loveseat, and someone from Freecycle got a free, gently used couch.

Moving is hard, and the metaphors are too easy. Confronting/facing every item in my possession and figuring out if it is serving me/if it can stay. Taking inventory and doing the heavy lifting, at least until I am a devoted minimalist and don’t have any possessions (unlikely based on so many facts).

“Never moving again” does sound lazy, though. And I will, I know, because not moving for too long means not growing/changing/advancing. For now, I appreciate the ability to sit tight, think/reflect/find a partner (and I promise, write more) about the big stuff, and nurture my tiny roots in this place. I’ll get to the movement, right after I put my feet up.

anxiety, career, community, coworkers, information, joy, reading, strangers

Balance.. and working

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

Not surprisingly, this is not the first time I’m writing about balance. People with anxiety know that balance is essential to avoid spinning out into spirals. I knew August would be tough, work-wise, because I accepted a lot of extra night/weekend shifts at the library. I just counted, and I worked 39 shifts over the course of the month (aka going from full-time job to part-time job multiple times, plus the beloved weekend shifts). Sometimes when I’m in self-pitying moods, I think I work a second job because I like to whine and tell everyone how hard I work. I have to remind myself that in reality, I love both my jobs, and up until recently I haven’t really had that much other stuff going on that I would rather be doing.

I know I did it to myself. I overcommitted, thinking it would balance itself out with the fact that I didn’t really work at the library in June. And now that August is over, maybe balance is achieved! The extra income is nice, and for every customer who makes my skin crawl, there is an equal if not greater than pleasant customer who knows my name or otherwise warms my heart.

And so without further ado, picture the following scenarios (presented in a glorified list). One bad for one good.. or maybe the scales tip slightly toward the pleasant.

Bad: when on the third day of working 5-9 after working 8:30-4:30, a guy who feels he is your friend (he is not) lets his young child continue on his way out (to dick around and be generally unsupervised) in order to tell you a longwinded tale of who from church asked him to look up the lyrics and sheet music (you don’t care), after you have already spent at least 15 minutes of your life helping him find this sheet music and him asking if he can just take a photo of it and print it and you say no, that is a copyright violation so he needs to buy it and he asks you to buy it and he can pay you and you say no while silently begging him to walk away and instead, like you hoped he wouldn’t but knew he would, he tells you what religion he is and asks you about yours. You wonder why people still think this is appropriate to ask someone who is on the clock at their job. Thankfully, he only guesses, and does not do so correctly, and then he leaves.

Good: when a high schooler who you knew as an awkward seventh grader walks towards you at the desk and greets you by name even though you haven’t worked at his school for two years, and generally teens don’t A) remember you or B) approach you even if they do. You talk to him about his favorite teachers from the last year and you think about the difference between a seventh grader and a tenth grader and how crazy that that difference happens in just over two years.

Bad: when people uncomfortable with technology call in to ask how to use the technology, and get confused and angry at you when you tell them the proper buttons to press, and they have to hang up to perform the action because they are trying to do it on their phone. You wonder why these people don’t come into the library to ask when you know they are otherwise capable of leaving their homes.

Good: when you help the upbeat youngish dad who works at the wine store use Adobe Acrobat (the fancy kind) to edit his visa application to visit China, and he is so effusively appreciative the day of, plus when you are working next, he returns and tells you he had his in-person interview at the consulate and everything is IN and approved and thanks you again, and smiles even bigger whenever he sees you in the wine store or he is in the library, like you are acquaintance-friends (you are!).

Bad: when customers overhear, misunderstand, and jump into your conversations with other customers, resulting in lengthy, factually inaccurate conversations you attempt to thwart but continue nevertheless about parking validation, or how to download ebooks, or any number of topics that you know you and your colleagues will have to set right, one person at a time.

Good: speaking of setting things right, you get the opportunity to give that woman the correct information about smartphone-less Uber, despite your still wondering why she thinks it will be different than a traditional taxi service, but you also give her some resources for concierge services that may help her get errands done.

Good: when an email in the general staff account is from an airline representative who found a library book in the customer lounge and they want to know how to get in touch with the customer to mail it back (bless their heart). Then, a week later, your boss emails you that there is a piece of mail for you and you are baffled until you go in and open it and see that the airline representative has mailed the book to you, and then you go show everyone working the book and use it as evidence that not all people suck and your coworkers view it the same way.

Bad: the sad feeling you get when you are near the smelly people or the people whose brains limit what they can do in the world, people who you help apply for a job on Indeed.com and you have to direct them exactly where to click, and then again to instruct them to click.

Mediocre: you walk back to the desk after walking around at close to find a note that reads “You’re Doing Great!” and you, knowing how few people are in the building at that time of Friday night, wonder whether a coworker or the teen boy you startled by opening the bathroom door just as he was exiting to announce that the library is closing or the guy you just helped with uploading his resume into Indeed left it. You identify that several of these options are more harmless than others. But like, you bring it home because it kind of makes you feel nice, when you think about how this person could have said this to your face but instead chose to write it on a slip of paper.

Great: when a woman comes in and asks you to find a “camp” she and her sister attended in the 1950s when she was 5 and her sister was 8 and after speaking with her a little while, you learn that this took place when their mother had TB, and while she recovered, her young children listened to stories and ran around and made fond memories of their time at camp, and then you find a New York Times article from 1955 (because bless the NYT and their archives) that identifies exactly what this place from 60 years ago that this woman never asked her mother about as an adult and now doesn’t have the option. You discuss that neither of you would ever have known that such a place was called a “preventorium” and you marvel about language and how even medical, scientific vocabularies change so much, much less how these topics are handled and treated. And you print out the article for her, because this is just really fucking cool, and she is from out of town so you never see her again but she asks your name, introduces herself, and tells you she really appreciates it.

So, yes, morale can be low at times, but you decide that there is a kind of expertise in shaking off the weird interactions and starting over with the next person. And there is a special kind of bond when someone really needs something and you’re the one to provide it. And at the very least, there is something extremely human in how people navigate the weird space that is a library, which is to say: community.

books, career, community, coworkers, let it go, librarians

Let It Burn

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

On the second-most-scenic drive home, there is an empty plot of land where a house burned down. I had my eye on this house for a long while, since I used to live just down the road from it. I had my eye on it because A) it was closer to the road than the other houses, and because it was falling apart, and because it gave me the itch: the feeling I get when I look at a mess that I want to organize–target, acquired. Get rid! This eyesore has got to go! Raze it and start over!

Because it was so on display, I clocked and  every imperfection of the house, from the boarded and broken windows to the caving-in roof, to the decomposing porch. Yes, I wondered why/when its owners had abandoned it, but more than anything I could see it wasn’t helpful.

Whenever long-dormant buildings like this burn down, I assume someone set it on fire. And I certainly don’t blame them. The only thing stopping me from doing so with every dilapidated building I see is the threat of arson charges. There is something cleansing in the removal from the landscape a house that no longer houses. Rather than gradually eroding one board at a time, an event happens to reset. To clear, remove that which is no longer serving its purpose.

—-

My attitude at work, if not my attitude in general, has started to smoke. Historically, I was the student/professional to volunteer for extra responsibilities, to speak up and often and generally help out. At some point during or after grad school, I became jaded and resentful. I would still offer to cover shifts for my coworkers, but I did not put in more work than was strictly necessary.

In preparation for the anniversary of the moon landing, a coworker had created a book list of related topics (space travel, biographies of astronauts, etc.) and as she hustled around talking about her to-do list with the last 30 minutes we were open, I volunteered to help put up her display. Also historically, I love creating book displays, but when I told her this and she told me I could make one literally whenever I felt like it by signing up to do so, I recoiled. Me!?! No. I do not extra-librarian. Not anymore.

This reaction was bratty and entirely based in habit. I paused, I examined my reaction, and determined that I had strayed too far from who I am. I am a person who volunteers. I am a joiner, and a doer of the things. Even if the things are extra-librarian-y. Just because I don’t have the job title doesn’t mean I should reject it.

So I set that attitude up in flames, and don’t you know it, there was an opening to make a book list & display almost immediately. And a new project committee to join (and yes, I took my lunch break from my main job to attend meetings for it). Maybe a lot of work, but worth the reinvestment into my department and my librarian-ity, and the idea that I can be happy and contribute at work.

—-

I remember the day that abandoned house burned down; I couldn’t believe that I happened to take that route that day. Often, I avoid it in the name of expediency; the flat, strip-mall-infested route seems more direct, and in exchange for the red lights and concrete, doesn’t take me past my old apartment with its history. Driving through the faint smoke cloud, I reasoned it had to have burned within the past day. Yellow caution tape surrounded the property. The chimney, brick as it was, was the only recognizable piece still standing. I was overjoyed that it had come down, and curious/excited about the possibility for the site’s future occupants.

With this unwanted, not cared for, not useful structure gone, there is so much space for new creation. It is my hope that as my career smoke clears, I’ll use what serves me to rebuild too.

anxiety, community, family, joy, let it go, strangers

The Love of the Game

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

This past Saturday, I attended a beautiful, fun wedding. I saw, danced/caught up with people I love, got dressed up, met new folks. I deeply enjoy weddings. Celebrating, love, socializing, nice food and beverages… what’s not to like?

Attending weddings as a person with anxiety, though, is a new experience. Surprisingly, not a great one. The day after, in addition to being fully drained from all the expended energy/alcohol/soreness of the feets, now I get the joy of playing and replaying “how I did” in my mind. What did people think? Did I talk too much? Was I annoying? Did I spend enough time with the people I know instead of roaming around making new friends like a drunk (social) butterfly? Why the fuck can I never manage to get it together to take a photo with the bride and groom??* Why didn’t I take any photos at all to post my belated congrats on social media?

To top it off, this wedding was at home. I made the choice to spend a few social hours, but mainly kept it to family, and it was great to not have to stress about getting places, but it made my heart hurt that I don’t see anyone enough. People I saw, people I didn’t see.. It made me sad and regretful that I don’t live near them. I want to be home and near them, and I want my new job. I want both.

So yesterday after the plane landed back in the garden state (at 7:30AM, in time for me to go directly to work), I was full of anxiety about whether I should have seen more friends and family/stayed longer/whether to play in the softball game last night.

Technically, I was awake, so I could! It’s the playoffs, and I was working during the last few games. There are only a maximum of 3 left, so the should I stick to the plan and play or should I listen to my body and take it easy struggle was strong in my head. I tortured myself even further when I told someone in the office I wasn’t going because reasons and he told me all the ways it was shitty bailing at the last minute. Cool! I know!

Because it’s the playoffs, there was another game today. They lost yesterday (added guilt for not going), so we had to win to stay in the running.

And it was great. Deffffinitely not perfect, but I knew essentially no one and managed not to embarrass myself athletically nor socially. I didn’t torture myself, even when I messed up, nor did I feel myself getting overly competitive. I turned into a different version of myself: a more-myself version. Fewer, if any, voices in my head telling me mean things. Maybe overly vocal with cheers though–aka maybe don’t cheer for people when I’m not 100% sure I have the right name. But I’m actually somewhat decent at second base, which is a pleasant surprise, and we managed to rally and win!

The feeling of a collective, positive group experience, whether with friends and family or with random people, is my jam. I left the field today hating myself a little less–full of endorphins, almost immediately full of ibuprofen, and missing the anxieties of the past two days.

I felt (and feel) so grateful. Grateful to have been able to be a (VERY) warm body on the field today, grateful that I work where I do, grateful to have such awesome friends and family who let me drive their cars or wear their shoes this weekend, grateful to find out on the drive home that one of my dear friends got good news, grateful that for now, my people are mostly healthy and mostly happy, and that I can sometimes stop beating myself up and just be in the moment.

When I stopped playing softball, it wasn’t by choice. There was a lot of shame, a lot of severed friendships, and I never found a group that I fell into as easily again (not that I tried more than once). I love the softball buddies who are still in my life, and no one could or will ever come close to those high school and college years of bonding, laughs, bruises, wins and losses. But, it is just so good to go back to something and feel like no time has passed (at least until the lower back pain set in). To feel like I never should have stopped.

Today I was where I needed to be; tomorrow I have plans that I made a month in advance and will have to miss the game. Again, I want both.

My lower back will be okay with not being there tomorrow. I’ll pray for rain all day to feel less guilty for hanging out with yet more people I’m lucky to be around. I’ll practice being okay with not being able to do everything, being protective of my time and mindful of my body’s limits, being okay with missing out. And I’ll know for next year not to plan anything during playoffs week.

I do love the game. I also love my friends, and book club, and air conditioning. I love instances where I can make a concrete decision and stand by it. I love my family and need to plan a trip with them. I also love sleep, and so will wrap up this little love letter.**

 

*Seriously, it’s a pattern, and a problem. If you (or someone we know) get(s) married and I am there, please help.

**I also love letters.

anxiety, be a better human, books, community, coworkers, depression, empathy, librarians, strangers

Taking books out

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

Did you know that during summer, people like to read books? Vacations and breaks from school make summertime an especially high-checkout, high-return time, and many titles are in high demand. Since our library doesn’t share with any other library and don’t have a bajillion copies of everything, this tends to mean wait lists: placing holds, and waiting your turn in line.

Waiting is an art, and not all of us are artists.

Last week, all in one day, I encountered three women who did not want to wait. One reason annoyed me. One reason made me laugh. One reason made me sad.

For morale, let’s start with the situation that annoyed me, move to sad and close with happy. One of our adult summer reading categories is graphic novels, since they are a burgeoning genre and an accessible/inventive mixture of art and literature. I got very excited when a gentleman came in Friday evening asking for a graphic novel, and I recommended my favorite one to him (Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch). He was not overeager to read any graphic novel, so I hoped this one would at least make him smile, as it did for me–even though it is about the author’s struggles with anxiety, depression, and adulting. *

The following day, the woman in question approached me looking for a graphic novel recommendation, and I explained that some of my favorites were already checked out, but she should definitely consider putting them on hold. She flatly refused. Her tone told me she wanted to be able to take this book out TODAY. NOW.

Though I understand how exciting it is to hear about and have a title in hand, then take it home immediately and get started, when people straight out refuse to place holds, I get miffed. Unless you are leaving for vacation tomorrow, why can’t you wait? Logistically, with some titles (looking at you, Becoming by Michelle Obama), if you don’t place a hold and instead wait to serendipitously find it on the shelf one day, you will NEVER GET THE BOOK. EVERYONE ELSE IS BEING SMART AND PLACING HOLDS AND THE HOLDS CONTINUE ON AND ON INTO PERPETUITY.

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I digress. To summarize: she left empty-handed with several titles (including Sarah’s Scribbles, also checked out), and I sent my recurring plea back out into the universe that people will understand that libraries are a place for sharing.

The incident that made me sad was that a feeble elderly woman asked me to recommend several books for her. We exhausted the large print selection, and she had a lot of trouble hearing in addition to her sight. She had taken a bus to get to us (when I know of at least 10 libraries closer to her) and I still don’t understand why. Because, when I told her that we could place holds for titles currently checked out, she told me she didn’t have a library card. I told her multiple times that she is still welcome to use the books in the library, but that she couldn’t take them home. Because of her hearing, and because of her apparent mental state, I feared what would result, and lo and behold my fears were accurate. She filled a canvas tote with about a dozen books, and proceeded to walk out of the gates, setting off the security noise.

She moved slowly, but my colleague caught up to her and had to have the far-too-long, repetitive, awkward conversation reminding/informing her that she could not simply take the books. He patiently told her all about her local library, and copied the spines of the books she had picked out so she had the titles. He stood with her and responded overall in a warm and thoughtful way. Again, I don’t know why she had it in her head that any library, much less one a 30 minute bus ride from her home, would let her have a bunch of books. She had forgotten what a library is and does, and her deteriorated mental state made me sad, and at the same time made me hope I never forget what a library is for.

The last woman is our local celebrity. At 95 years old, she uses a walker but uses it often. She is easily spotted all around town because of her colorful hair and wardrobe. She currently has it dyed an emerald green with one chunk of magenta, and was rocking a lemon colored shirt. I handed her the book she had asked me to find and immediately went to help someone else. The man I was helping turned to me when we heard the security noise and said “she didn’t check that out!” as we watched her continue through the gates and out the door. I started to go after her, calling her name, but she didn’t hear me (or the security noise) and I decided to let her keep cruising on with her day. I realized I knew exactly what book she had, and her full name…all the info I needed to check the book out to her. I told the man who saw “it’s ok, I know her.”

That made me happy. I love knowing people, and I love even more the idea that if people know you, you can make mistakes and they’ll have your back. Above all, I love this library and community (the good eggs outweigh the jerks)!

*The cover image of this post is from this book, and looking through photos make me seriously doubt that the guy I recommended this to will like it AT ALL. lolol but who knows.

anxiety, career, let it go, librarians, meditation, writing

Time Off

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

It would seem I took an entire season off from writing… It wasn’t an accident, but procrastination took over any time I told myself to blog. Interestingly enough, at least over the past month, this lapse in writing has overlapped (overlapsed?) with a lot of time off from the library. But holy cow, has there been a lot going on. Time off from the library doesn’t mean time off from general life!

In June, I worked two four-hour shifts at the public library. Reader, I had Friday nights to myself! Those Fridays were great, and I spent them with dear friends.

However, with full appreciation of not having to punch the clock, let me say: I think working at the library is part of my self-care.

Over the past couple months, the seven-month period of temping has come to a victorious end. I am gainfully full-time employed, officially, permanently, in a department surrounded by awesome people who love coming to work every day. My 9-5 is everything I have waited for, and I feel so so so fortunate.

I would love to say that I was confident in my abilities and my chances at this job since the department knew me and invited me back (despite myself 🙂 to fill the position while the search went on. I would love to say that I did not stress myself out even though the job was probably mine from day one. I would love to say that even though the work is an exact match to my professional skills and demeanor, I was not chock full of terror that I would be rejected again and set adrift to continue temping elsewhere. For the several weeks in between when I applied and when I interviewed, any mention my colleagues made to “you’ll see in the fall” or “when we all do X/Y/Z in August..” I inserted “if I’m still here!” in order not to jinx it.

Because there is no time off from my brain. To me, the only thing worse than not getting this dream job would be to have expressed my sense of belonging out loud, on the record, and THEN not get to stay. I pulled apart any and every interaction with my supervisors to decipher whether they were implying that I would be sticking around. As professionals, they couldn’t just come right out and say “you are our first choice for this job,” but I’ve apparently become so uncomfortable with uncertainty that I needed someone to say that to ease my strife. On the occasions one of them did say something encouraging, I tried to hold it and internalize their praise for as long as I could.

Now, I have the security of a real job, and the comfort and immense joy that is belonging with these people.

So on the one hand, big things have changed on my time off. On the other, I still have the crazy monkey mind running around behind the scenes, not knowing what to do with herself when she does not have a task at hand. This week for the holiday, a full day off, I made zero plans and essentially online shopped all day. (Don’t yell at me, Mom! I yell at myself enough!) I haven’t been meditating enough, nor going to yoga enough, nor celebrating my accomplishments, nor going outdoors, enough, and I wanted to just zone out and hoard pretty things.

And this is why I will still work part-time at the library! Not only because I need funding to offset my love of and proclivity towards buying clothes, but also because I need to get out of myself and work in the service of others (which I do during my day job, but evidently I can’t get enough). I am not delusional to think I am saving lives as I sit behind a computer at a desk in an air conditioned building, but when I am there, surrounded by friends and community members, it feels like where I am supposed to be.

During my interview day, I met with a gentleman colleague, and he asked me one direct question about the position, but since he has already worked with me for a couple months and has seen what I’m about, the rest of the time, we spent talking about the library. He told me he was curious about where I ran off to on Fridays, and he complimented my hustle.

Maybe I shouldn’t need to hustle. Maybe I should take it easy, and take more time off. But at this point, I don’t really know what to do with more time off, and my work is more than a paycheck. All I know is I’m looking forward to the new normal, stabilizing and seeing what happens.

Stay tuned! Back to work.

anxiety, books, community, kindness, reading

Yes? No!

theangrylibrarianonlifeandbooks

Inexplicably, on campus, there is a stone with the word YES! carved into it. It was literally on my path towards a destination I’d never visited before. Though I appreciate the positivity, opportunity and encouragement inherent to this three-letter word, sometimes YES just is not the answer!

I recommended a book to my BFF, which she is now listening to (yay for people taking my recommendations 🙂 and the subject matter, though dealt with in a humorous way, is dark. She told me the chapter about suicidality was particularly hard to listen to, and that it made her feel sick. I almost didn’t remember that the chapter existed, because when I got to it, I too started to feel sick at how detailed it was. As I recognized its negative impact, I said “Nope, I don’t need this,” and shut it down. I skipped the rest of the chapter, and considered it a successful exhibit of boundaries.

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This is How: Help for the Self in Overcoming Shyness, Grief, Molestation, Disease, Fatness, Lushery, Spinsterhood, Decrepitude & More by Augusten Burroughs

(This book is magnificent, and a truly helpful ‘self-help’ book. I recommend it wholeheartedly, but also suggest skipping the suicide chapter.)

Saying no is not always my instinct, nor does it come easily. One of my chosen ways of checking out of my problems is checking out online shopping. Because other problems seem bigger and more threatening and it’s not like another $30 (or $50, or $80) will send me directly to the poorhouse, why not embrace the “treat yo self” mentality and buy the beautiful items (read: clothes. It is always clothes) I want. They’re secondhand, so not as expensive as they could be, and besides, I need an infusion of color or newness into my wardrobe. I’m working six days this week; surely the extra hours will cover the cost.

No.

Setting aside that my income is not what it was at the job I hated, (which for New Jersey wasn’t even much) it is high time I started saving rather than living paycheck to paycheck and eating meals out all the time. I have never been late with a payment, nor do I make extravagant purchases, but nevertheless I need to act like my financial now will impact my financial future. Every $30, $50, $80 adds up. Often, my instinct is to say “YES! Why not?” when it needs to be “no. Shut it down.”

Last weekend when I had a bad day, avoided all human contact and was strongly tempted to bail on a friend’s invitation, my instinct was to say no, and shut it down. In that case, the answer was definitely to fight my instinct, honor my RSVP, and go socialize. I did this, and had a great time seeing my friend and meeting new people. YES! for the win.

Choices give me a lot of anxiety, so you’d think it would be best to boil it down to just the big two, but there is no blanket answer. YES! is only constructive some of the time. Universal NO: anxiety edition gets extremely isolating. My working mantra veers away from the dichotomy, and towards an ambiguous question: “what do I need?” This is not always in line with what I want, but I have to at least be honest with myself.

And this is what mindfulness is all about: slowing down to recognize these choices and the mental conversation behind them. My instincts are often wrong, so to indulge them is counterproductive, even self-destructive, and they require checking-in and rewiring. Do I sometimes ignore the rules I set for myself (like “no shopping”)? Yes. Did I miss out on something by skipping that suicide chapter? Yes, it turns out I did–but my BFF filled me in. And I’ll fill you in if you ask!

Teamwork! Boundaries! Progress.