The Battle with Anxiety or Get Out (of the house)

Over the last few days, I've been having panic attacks: in magnitude from the kind nobody notices as a panic attack and instead read as awkward aloofness to full-blown debilitating ones. They've pretty much kept me from interacting with my friends. Then I began reflecting on exactly *how often* my desire to spend time with people I like who reside outside my 4 walls. Even today, when my obligations were limited and my desire to see people legitimately important to me was high, I still sat in my hotel room, literally paralyzed from acting, really even leaving (as a reference point: no Chuckbox today bc I didn't leave because, well, people.

And then when it happens, I get depressed and totally down on myself as I project all the reasons why I should be able to, personally, sack up. The only reason I did ANYTHING at all was to spend a Hot Minute with my man Steve, who despite living 28 miles from each other, I never see...And it's totally on me.

It's even worse because I feel like a total hypocrite when I tell *other* people to not let Anxiety beat them when it beats me relentlessly while calling me Toby. I want to shout "I AM KUNTA KINTE" but honestly most days, I'm too deflated to do anything.

I say this because tomorrow, I probably *should* go to the Cal: lots of friends I literally never see and I told fools I'd go. But I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, we're moving and I have more packing to do, the time it'll take is logic preventative, etc. But I also know that I ALWAYS find an excuse- I have a really good friend I've stood upon going out to chill over a dozen times in the last 2 years (this was magnified when I stopped *having* to be around people at SF, I just stopped *doing* that, which was awesome, but meant that I just never had to, so I just never did). And now, driving an hour, feeling anxious the whole way, makes me want to turn around and go home, which I did three times last year...I want to go...

Which is why I'm making a commitment to myself and my sanity: *at least* once a week, I need to do something with my friends- might be as small as a worship to the memory of Sonny Bono to going out of town on a trip with friends I don't see as often as I should- reference point, I saw two friends from my hometown I never see while doing consulting work in Phoenix- and that's some bullshit that I want to end. But I need people to keep me accountable because otherwise, today happens. Expect to be told to fuck yourself in the heat of battle, but all the help I can get...

I hope someone is out there, feels this way and this helped. What I really hope is someday, I can post this without a fear of what people will think.

We need to normalize anxiety and depression.

The Resolution and The Soundtrack...

Soooooo....I made a New Years resolution, that I would make an attempt to either run or write every day- as I know doing either of these things makes me feel better, mentally and well as physically. Running literally involves putting on shoes and leaving, and writing requires neither of those, so the ability to do one or the other is really easy, and the choice to do neither will be mine alone. I know I will not be able to do it every day, but the goal is to get in the habit of doing one or the other, and on days where I can motivate myself, I'll try to do both. Like today. But it's January 1, so we should probably hold off on the celebratory handjobs for a few days...

...so I'm attempting to create a  musical soundtrack of my life. It started pretty innocently- I was looking through old assignments I gave out when I was a teacher, and one of the assignments that worked out better in my head than in real life was having students create a musical soundtrack of their lives. There were exceptions, obviously, but as a standard, they were pretty fucking bad. When I was reading them, I was actually stunned at not just how terrible their taste in music was (and I did tell them to stay the hell off my lawn, so there's that), bit also how incomplete their assignments were- it was like they hadn't put in the effort to get the assignment done.

I now understand the problem- it's a way, way harder assignment than I 1) wanted them to do and 2) than I ever thought it might be. I know this because I decided to try the assignment myself. To be fair, my assignment, although I did make them *explain* why songs they chose mattered, I am not planning on doing that, due to the emotional weight some of the music would take on me for having to relive through explanation, as well as the sheer length of what I imagine to be a massive amount of very diverse music. Their assignment had either a time limit or a song limit, depending on the year assigned, and I'm old as fuck, so I don't adhere to the time constraints of youth.

And this is going to be a process...I'm only in the classic soul to 80's alternative phase (into my freshman year of high school) and I have eliminated over 300 songs, have kind of isolated down to a few key artists and or songs from that period, and I'm hoping to be able to lock down some of the songs, with the ultimate goal to put it on Spotify, which is something to do with this 6 months free I have done literally nothing with....

Let's see how this goes...