Category Archives: Totally normal

Elusive Sleep, Part II

Posted by Elizabeth in Anxiety, Daily, Lamenting, Muse, Totally normal

For the past few weeks, maybe longer, I’ve been lying awake for HOURS trying to get to sleep. I’ve been taking Ambien for quite a while – not a secret – and it helps me stay asleep like a charm. But getting there, Y’ALL. It’s like…something really hard. I can’t think of anything right now.

Some nights I turn on Pandora and try to choose something soothing, but inevitably I either sing along to the songs, get annoyed with Pandora’s choices or just get annoyed in general that I’m having to listen to something. Other nights I try to meditate, but my mind OH HOW IT WANDERS. There have to be ways to quiet my mind at bedtime. Just before writing this I made a list of all the things I’m worried about or that weigh heavily on my thoughts. The plan, you see, is that this would take all those thoughts out of my head and deposit them somewhere else for safekeeping until tomorrow.

Not so much. That list has 19 things on it. NINETEEN. Granted, some of them I listed twice. Some of them are weirdo health things that are most likely anxiety induced but worry me just the same. Some of them are work related and some are holiday stuff. Yes, YES I AM ALREADY WORRIED ABOUT THE HOLIDAYS. Where will we spend Christmas? What am I getting everyone? Will there be enough money to go around for the entire family? What if there isn’t? What if I can’t convince family members that we should skip gifts this year and do something good for the planet and/or its people?

And then there’s the weird paranoia that I’m not supposed to talk about on the Internet but that has to do with…a word that rhymes with jerk. But not spelled that way, IF YOU GET MY CRAZY SUBTLE CLUES. Which leads me to think about my list of things I need to do tomorrow, and why not just worry about them now instead of waiting until the morning? If I think hard enough about it now surely the answer will come to me, yes? And if I consult my Google calendar 42 times in the next 15 minutes than surely I’ll be prepared for all my appointments tomorrow, yes?

Help me stop the madness, y’all. There’s a yoga class I want to join this week but I am the opposite of flexible, and I don’t have a mat and is it okay to wear pajamas to yoga? Because that’s not so much relaxing sounding in my head. And then I could take a hot shower but wet head in the bed? No way. Milk? I’ll just have to pee more. All the lights out for quiet time? Obviously you’re not listening.

And yes, before you ask, I consume caffeine. Two Coke Zeroes a day at max, and I try really hard to quit at noon. So the solution for tonight is to write it all down right here and hope for the best.

Wish me luck, y’all.

How to make me cry on my day off

Posted by Elizabeth in Lamenting, Totally normal

Car man: Mrs. Baker, I need to see you back here in the garage, please.

Me: TOTALLY DIDN’T DO IT WHATEVER IT IS.

Him: Yes ma’am, that’s right. We’ll just peek right here under the [something technical that didn't make sense].

Me: I don’t know what any of this is.

Him: All you really need to know, ma’am, is that these are moving parts that don’t work anymore.

Me: Fucking European cars.

Him: That’ll be $1000. Well, $967 with the discount.

Me: Sure thing, buckaroo. I’ll schedule that repair RIGHT AWAY.

A letter to you

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Daily, Good Stuff, Muse, Totally normal

First you need to know how much I love you. Next you need to know how much you are going to love yourself when all of this is over.

I am so proud of you for everything positive you’re doing in your life. I get lumpy crocodile tears when I think of the silent pain you must’ve been in for so long, and I wish I had known. But now, NOW!, you are doing yourself a solid and being your own best friend, which is a hard thing to do.

Growing up easy becomes sort of hard later on, doesn’t it? I wonder if you may have discovered this accidentally like I did. One day in college I stopped dead in my tracks, looked around and realized I wasn’t like everyone else. My hard part had yet to come, whereas their hard parts were over. Bastards.

I want to kiss your sweet cherub face and tell you to get a haircut. I want to hear you laugh because it makes me cackle. I want to ride in a car with you while you make me listen to some damn band I don’t know. Mostly I want to hug you and promise never to let go.When you pick up the phone to call me, you can bet I’m on the other end, dialing your number. (It usually happens just that way, doesn’t it? So weird.)

You are my new hero. You should probably know that I have a lot of heroes, but you’re new on the list and automatically you’re moving to the top! Congratulations! You and I are very similar though, so you should be warned of my steady non-hero status.

I love you and I want to hug your neck something fierce.

On perfection, and how I’m not there yet

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Muse, Totally normal

I think there comes a day in everyone’s life when you finally realize that, no matter how hard you work, your life just isn’t going to be perfect. I tell myself this every day, or I try to, but somehow I’m just not getting the message.

I had my work evaluation this week, and I scored a 3.8 out of 5. If we’re looking at it carefully and officially, this is a C average. I AM NOT A C STUDENT, y’all. In fact, I’ve been bitching about this since Tuesday because I am completely incensed. It does not matter to me that my boss got a 3.8 as well. Or that in order to get much higher than that, you have to provide documentation that is akin to giving a blood sample. Or that the scores are averaged among the bazillion people that evaluate you.

I’m pretty sure none of this matters, because I got a C.

In college I would go home after each semester and sing the Cookie Monster song. (C is for cookie and that’s good enough for meeee!) I was trying to be funny because those C’s were grand achievements compared to my French and calculus grades. But now! NOW! Mediocre does not get you a giant promotion. Middle of the road does not a Ph.D. make.

So where does that leave us average people?

I’ve been anxious this year, ever since Christmas, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I am taking my medication regularly, I finished up school, I’m spending more time with my husband and you’d think that would ease the strain on my psyche. Not so much, though. I’m attributing most of it to the amount of caffeine I’m consuming these days (which, in combination with Ambien, is also to blame for the hallucinatory posts I’m writing; see below) but I feel like there’s got to be an underlying current of…something there.

And I think it might be the idea of perfection that is eating away at my nerves, making my stomach shaky and my ability to sleep nonexistent.

I look around at my house and, despite all your suggestions and good intentions, we still haven’t taken care of the, uh…clutter. It overwhelms me and it is such a daunting task that I am constantly berating myself (and Brian) for not having a perfectly put together home. Look at so-and-so! They have four children and zero mess! Remember when we went to such-and-such’s house? It was decorated to a T and we could’ve eaten off their floors!

I keep thinking about that B I got in my research class 3 years ago. That B, the only non-A I got in my degree, kept me from a 4.0 GPA. I graduated with a 3.909. SERIOUSLY, school, HOW ABOUT ROUNDING UP? It’s not a perfect GPA and I’m here to admit freely that I am insanely bothered by that.

People are taking vacations left and right; they are buying cars and houses like it’s the only thing that matters; they are saving up thousands and thousands every month (so they say) and WHERE ON EARTH is all this coming from? Is there a secret lottery I don’t know about? Did some farmer in Iowa finally invent a money tree? And why do I make this comparison?

Because it’s the idea of perfection that eats away at me and I know I haven’t attained it. When will I ever be satisfied with the notion that Hey, this is me. Take it or leave it. Love it or don’t. Get the fuck over it.

Will I ever? Is it possible?

Lodge and in charge

Posted by Elizabeth in Beach, Daily, Listing, Random Shit, Totally normal, WTF?

I made a sudden decision tonight to replace all our ceilings with bead board, or at least some tobacco barn slats that I feel sure we have leftover from the farm project. I figure it’s super easy: sand that popcorny shit, slap a few boards up, have fun with the nail gun and BAM! Ceiling city. Maybe I can do that when I’m off on Friday.

I also made a sudden discovery tonight: I LIKE CAMPING. I’m not sure that roughing it can be defined in only one way, so I’m going to define it MY way: camping is, not sleeping in your own bed, it’s being able to see stars/moon/sun/streetlights from your bed, and it’s taking enough food into that sleeping area, wherever it may be, that you don’t rely on trail mix and melted snow if you get lost. BURGERS, lost people, PORK CHOPS. As some of us may recall from childhood, camping was a fort in the backyard. As adults, I say we bring back the Living Room Fort. We bring it back with pillows, blankets, those old refrigerator boxes, laundry baskets, step stools, THE WHOLE SHEBANG.

As if these weren’t already good enough ideas, I bombarded my mind with extra ideas it needs. (It always needs extra ideas.) My ideas are as follows:

  1. Make a new friend everyday. Now admittedly, some of us don’t run into a lot of people throughout the day and that can make this task seem daunting. A new friend can be the Canada goose who poos on your sidewalk. Your new friend can be the multi-pierced fellow at the grocery store who wants to touch your produce. It doesn’t matter, y’all. You’re just looking to make ONE new friend. Pick an interesting one.
  2. Be glad for one thing everyday. Today, I am glad that the people who live behind us in the weird house with the sketchy brown fence didn’t get hurt during what appeared to be, at the time, an electrical fire. Although, she’s a former art teacher, so BB and I concocted some fun, what-if stories that we’ll just share at a later date. (What if she was burning some kind of giant plastic bleach jug for an “art” project and then her family got home and was all “MOM! That’s bleach and FIRE!” And she’s all “No, kids. This is art.”)
  3. Oh, my other idea. This one rocks so steady, I can’t even stand it. Here it is, are you ready?

That’s right, y’all. THROWBACK VINTAGE ’60s style MOTOR-FUCKING-LODGE! My SIL stayed for a night this weekend and absolutely fell in love with it. The little guy at the front desk flips open the book to see if there are rooms available. And if there are rooms, he will hand you a real key with a giant plastic number as he pencils in your reservation. WITH A PENCIL. And dogs are allowed and even encouraged. And I just can’t say with any certainty that it will be the finest place I ever stay in, BUT! I think we might try it Brady style. Load up the wagon, stock the kitchenette, bring our beach towels and get the sheets sandy. I mean, hello…it’s the ATLANTIS LODGE.

Bitches.