Ok, Cupid...

Remember that Okcupid I mentioned I started last week? I got a message today. It wasn't creepy. I'm nice, so I answered him. Just names, what I do, etc.

he doesn't seem to care that I don't have a picture of myself. And I will try my damndest to take this at a pace with which I am most comfortable and see if anything happens.

Step 1.

One day at a time

How often is normal to wake up anxious? The last week or so I've awakened at 7 every morning, very nervous, and unable to go back to sleep, even after taking valerian to help me go to sleep the night before. And I start thinking about moving. I am CONSTANTLY thinking about moving and I can't stop. And it bothers me so much because I don't want to move away right now and I keep struggling with why I should and telling myself why I'm not ready. Curiously (or maybe not) I'm okay when I talk to my friends about it, but then I sit down alone and think about it again and it freaks me out. It just isn't fathomable right now.

I've also stopped being able to eat breakfast. Coffee, fine, food, no. I'm probably not eating enough during the day as it is; I eat lunch at work, and then I come home and pick at dinner or nibble. I'm losing a lot of weight. I'm tired. I kind of don't care as along as I'm not having full-blown anxiety.

I've taken to lying in bed for hours with my "Amber Spyglass" recording and my oldest teddy bear. I discovered how much it helps me fall asleep a few years ago-probably because its got a full cast and people talking and Philip Pullman's voice is really soothing. I want to get the first two, now, if I can afford them. Something about it helps.

One of the hardest things I think I've ever had to do is tell myself to take it one day at a time. I'm trying to be open to people and learn to gauge body language because part of me wants to start giving out my number, even though that's a whole other trigger in itself.

One day I will get there. I'm just not jumping right in. Baby steps. That's all it is. One day at a time.

It's not you, it's me

It actually is me. And I am so tired of this comfort zone crap.

Yesterday I rebooted my OkCupid account and started making a  legitimate profile. I didnt upload a picture because I wasnt planning to use it for actual interaction, but I thought it might be interesting. It is a lot of fun to browse through it and see what kind of guys are out there. Some of them seem articulate and smart, but it's so hard to tell who's being genuine.

As one of my guy friends said, it would be so easy to just send someone a message and ask them to go out for a drink. So easy. But I'm not at that point right now. I actually find that idea a lot more uncomfortable than meeting someone at work or in class. I really do think that the easiest and safest way for me to do it is to have my friends set me up. (or, you know, just keep doing what I've been doing and trust that sooner or later someone I know from somewhere will ask me out.)

I also got really uncomfortable with the fact that people can see you online and kept messaging me for pictures. So I shut it down.

I don't think I'm actually that desperate. Even if it is just a drink, when I go out with you I don't want to have to agonize over how interested I really am. Because if I have to think about it that much, it isn't right. I want to meet someone, but naturally. Not out of obligation to be doing something the world thinks I should be.

This is probably going to hold me back from a lot of experiences, but it all just feels wrong. Everything feels wrong right now. I don't have a clue who I am, I don't need the extra worry about forcing interaction with strangers.

I'm trying to just go along with everything and trust that when I'm ready to move it will come naturally. But this is the crappiest time, and all I want to do right now is lie in bed with some kind of background noise and not think about the future. Anticipation is evil.

Dad wonders if the fact that I've been waking up every day with anxiety about moving, even though I have no plans to do it soon, means that deep down I really want to. Maybe. It isn't about freedom for me like it seems to be for everyone else; I'm just starting to feel like it isn't healthy for me to stay here past a certain time.

Maybe at one point I'll go back to counseling, but I feel like as long as I still have my parents to come home to I can get through it. I don't want to need counseling. I just hate not having any decent reason to get out of bed, and every morning this week I've awakened feeling crappy.

I am just so, so confused and conflicted, and so scared to be adult and navigate this life.

To My Future Spouse

In one of my anxiety-driven googles this morning, I stumbled across To My Future Spouse, a tumblr where people post anonymous messages to their potential future partners. I've been thinking a lot about how much I hate forcing social interaction that I'm not comfortable with, and where I am with my life, and honestly I think I'm doing okay. I'm trying to be open to things, but I'm genuinely pretty happy where I am right now. And it's going to get better.

TMFS will edit this for his blog, but in the meantime, this is what I concluded, and I wrote in with this:

To my future husband,

You might not actually be my husband. You might end up being a permanent companion. You might even end up being a woman, although deep down, when I imagine you, you're always a man.

You're always faceless, too, because I don't know who you are yet.

I don't know where I'm going to find you. I don't think I'll find you here in DC. Maybe I'll find you when I start my new classes, or when I finally get my shit together in however many years I want to take to get my shit together and move to New York where all my best friends are. And I may be young, but at 22 I already know you will be a quality person and I'm not going to meet you at bar, or a club, or a dance party. I get no satisfaction from that kind of interaction, anyway, so I don't bother.

I'm not even all that desperate to find you. I will admit, though, that I am neurotic and more comfortable with familiarity, and that getting me to warm up to you completely is like walking on eggshells. I believe that all the "you've got to leave your comfort zone" stuff everyone keeps trying to convince me about is bullshit. I'm not merely being picky - I'm being safe. Because when we find each other, it should be safe, and natural, and easy. If anything, you're going to walk into my comfort zone instead of me leaving mine. And that's how I know that I'm not just sitting around waiting for you, because I truly believe that there will be a moment when I'm not expecting it where you'll just blindside me. I'm sociable, but not wholly social, and I don't need a lot of stimulation as much I just like to go out and know that I was with people for most of my day, and I probably won't ever actively start dating as a hobby.

If you've read this far, it means you're still interested. Maybe you feel the same way - i hope you do. More than anything right now I'm enamored with the idea of you, but the idea of the time leading up to it frightens me. Don't take that to mean I'm non-comittal! I'm far from non-comittal. But I have next to no experience with dating in a traditional context, and even less experience with intimacy. When you walk into my life you will be so perfectly natural to me that allowing myself to be vulnerable with you won't feel like something I'm doing out of an obligation not to miss out on something that's supposed to be critical to adult development. You may be my first, and that will be amazing.

Sometimes I get down on myself and try to force myself to go out and find you, but then I'm just disappointed. I believe in fate. Nothing's ever told me that the future of my happiness RIGHT NOW depends on forcing myself out there.

I do believe that you are out there. I do believe that we will cross paths accidentally when neither of us is looking. I want to believe I can be open to an opportunity to find you without forcing anything I don't believe in. I don't believe that I am any less of a successful, independent, stable young woman just because I live with my parents and enjoy spending time at home. I want to be with you because I'll still enjoy spending time at home - wherever home is - with you, just being.

My life is pretty full right now. It could be fuller, and one day it will be. I'm in no hurry. When I find you, everything else we do won't matter, because we'll have each other to come home to and, naturally, we'll just...fill each other.

Find me. I'm always here.

E.

Things that work

Sometimes I think I do this coping crap on purpose. Then I think im getting better. Then I relapse. I just spent 20 minutes in the shower hugging myself and then I curled up into the fetal position. I'm under my blanket again now, and I know tomorrow once I start working I'll be okay.

But I ate today and I'm not shaking right now, even though I am antsy about tomorrow, so I consider it a victory.

I wonder if I should consider going back to counseling.

Big Damn Comfort Zone

So I didn't get the barista job. I did get something new today, though! More on that in a sec.

I know people say life's too short to spend at home all the time, and too short to spend with the same people forever, but honestly there's no other place I'd rather be on most occasions. This week in particular I've come to discover that I think the root of a lot of my anxiety and general lack of interest in going out at night or staying out late comes from my introvertedness.

Yes, I am officially an introvert. Not in an anti-social way, but I thrive on comfortable, familiar things-snuggling up on the couch under my blanket, long naps, books, cozy chats with my parents. Quiet things. Solitary things. Things I don't need to really think about. Things that don't cause stress. And I always knew this, because I was like this as a child, too; but it's become much more obvious in recent days. I have always been one of those people who is severely introspective and overly rational and needs to weigh every possible positive and negative outcome of everything before I'm okay with major decisions. And some minor ones. And usually the negative ones get the better of me.

I'm not necessary bothered by it. I think our personalities are hardwired in whatever way they are, and if you're okay with things, generally, it isn't a thing to try and force change upon. But I think it does explain why I have so many hangups about dating and "adult things" - the idea of putting effort towards something that I, for whatever reason, consider a deeply important, deeply personal experience with a total stranger just hasn't ever seemed worth it to me. I am utterly weirded out by the idea of it, because i havent taken the opportunity and it has never felt right. But at the same time, I think a lot about how i fear ending up alone. I am afraid both of the vulnerability involved in putting myself out there and trying and of what happens if I don't.

So I just don't. I am made of infinite contradictions.

I was offered my new job as a florist-in-training literally on the spot. I applied on a whim yesterday. I have no experience with this. They hired me anyway, and they want to train me for a full design position.

I took it, in spite of the low wages, because I want to work. I took part-time so I can continue to focus on more things in my field, even though the people in charge of hiring for those positions have not been communicative. So I'll learn about flowers, and train at Studio Theatre, and act wherever I can, and go one day at a time from there. But I'm really scared. One, I feel like I'm taking a step backward,  working in retail again after college, even if it is creative and lets me work with my hands (i do love doing that, I just didn't expect it to go down this way). Two, I'll probably really like it, and I know its premature, but i think deep down theyre grooming me for a full-time position that I don't really think I want. My mom says that being afraid of something keeping me from pursuing theatre means I don't want theatre as badly as i think i do, and a part of me thinks she's right. There just isn't anything else I can imagine myself enjoying all the time as much as i do theatre.

And lastly, tomorrow mom turns 65. Not that you'd know from the state of her healthy and energy. But I graduated and she's 65 and suddenly things just HAPPENED and everything i do is a desperate attempt to slow it all down for as long as I can.