I get anxious about things. Not super anxious, but anxious. I get anxious about going to new places or not being on time. I get anxious about leaving. I get anxious about trying things I haven’t done before or things I’m not good at (dancing, golf, roller skating) – especially if people are watching. I get anxious about things like driving a U-Haul. I get anxious about not knowing where to park. And let’s not talk about not knowing where to park the U-Haul. I get anxious about not getting things right. I get anxious about failure – especially public failure. I get anxious about disappointing people – especially people who depend on me. I get anxious when I don’t have control or at least a say in the outcome. I sometimes get anxious about public speaking. When I have to give a presentation, I’m much more at ease if I can wing it. Give me a PowerPoint with strict talking points and my hands will shake and I might accidentally throw the clicker as I speak (this happened once). I get anxious about being in other people’s way or not being prepared. As a coping strategy, I often arrive early to wherever I need to be and quickly seek to establish a level of comfort (I do this in relationships too). I over-prepare so I can seem (and maybe feel) at ease.
As an example of the stupid ways anxiety plays out for me, I had an appointment for a PCR COVID test this morning. It was at 10 am. The Rite Aid is a 3-minute drive from my house. At 9 am I began thinking about heading over. For an hour, I had this nervous energy and just wanted to get it over with. I tried to remember where the entrance to the parking lot was (I drive by it every day). I worried about taking too long to take the test, or not having the right papers, or making the person behind me wait, or being publicly dumb in some other inane way. I arrived ten minutes early because that’s what the online instructions said to do. Then I thought, “I’m early and probably messed everything up or took someone else’s slot.” Naturally, someone pulled into the drive-thru lane behind me within a minute of my arrival. It took the pharmacist a while and I kept checking my rear view to see if the man behind me was getting impatient. He was and he left. Then, sitting in the car waiting for them to give me the test, I lightly chastised myself for not having looked up the instructions before leaving the house. In order to pass the time productively and to be efficient, I watched a video on how to take the test. Yep, just like I remember – stick swab in each nostril, swish around, put swab in vial of liquid, secure cap. Then, for good measure, I read the instructions taped on the window of the pharmacy. I sometimes over-prepare. I’ll check my google maps app even when I know the next turn is coming. I read the recipe instructions over and over as I cook.
I don’t particularly like this about myself – this over-planning and sometimes anxious side. It can make me seem uptight. I used to hold up a clenched fist and joke, “this is my sphincter.” It serves me well on job interviews and in meetings. It’s great for when I want to plan a surprise for someone I care about. Paying attention to details can be helpful in writing or in showing that I care… but in everyday life, it can get tiring and lead to inflexibility. What I experience isn’t a debilitating type of anxiety. It seldom holds me back and I pretty much always get over it. I suspect it’s your run-of-the-mill, garden-variety type of anxiety. In fact, unless you really get to know me, like on a daily live with me basis, you probably wouldn’t notice it. Acquaintances and strangers say I’m poised and calm and patient. I’ve been told that I roll with the punches and am easy going. Those descriptions sometimes feel inauthentic or in contradiction to what I wrote above – maybe they’re overcompensations. The people who say these things never get to see my mind racing through scenario after scenario. These people are the first dates that only see fun-loving me, the interviewers who see the well-spoken me – they didn’t see the me pacing the house before the date or before the interview when I was worried about being on time, or having a clean car, or an annoying wrinkle in my shirt, or if there will be detours on the roads I only somewhat know.
I don’t know how to reconcile the planner in me with the free spirit I sometimes want to be or think I am. I don’t always know how to curb the minor anxieties that follow me like a shadow carrying a stiletto poked in the small of my back prodding me along. I’m fully aware that many of my best experiences in life have been unscripted. I enjoy life most when I don’t have to plan or when I can completely let go. As examples, I think of the weeks I spent at the shore not giving a damn about what we did or when we did it. I think about my semi-spontaneous road-trip down south – a car, my stuff, a few hotels booked – let’s see how it goes. I think about those months when I should have been worried because I was unemployed in a city I didn’t know and how I just didn’t seem to care. I think about the moments in various relationships when these nervous preoccupations took a back seat to what was in front of me. Everyone says there is a beauty in giving up control… but it can be so hard to put into practice or do with any level of consistency.
If I dislike these preoccupations that sometimes form the basis of my daily life, it’s because I blame them for photo bombing the picture frame of my happiness and for spoiling a few relationships. I can remember my friend Stacy telling me that she really likes being around vacation mode Matt, he’s goofy, funny, and doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. I suspect my ex-fiancée had a similar view… We started off in vacation mode but she grew to hate our day-to-day. Perhaps I can only pull-off carefree me for short periods of time. Perhaps my anxieties are more insufferable than I’m aware of.
The First Step Is Awareness
Where this whole post started was in my head on my morning walk with the dog. The other day I had seen an interesting job on the west coast. This morning I imagined what it might be like to live in that city. Me being me, I started to think about the commute and if I’d keep the car, and how I might otherwise get around. Yes, parking and traffic, and all those anxious trappings. In my defense, I’ve lived most of my life in the suburbs and never really used public transportation. Cars are a way of life and so is wondering about the parking situation (even city folk like Seinfeld made jokes about parking anxiety). As I walked, these are the things I thought about – which made me replay some of the anxieties that popped up when I lived part-time with an ex in Philly. I remembered how on our first date, I parked way too far away from where we were meeting. I didn’t know the area so I chose a place where I had parked, with ease, a few nights before. This was me sticking to what I knew so I would have one less thing to worry about. I was reminded of the few times I drove her from her place near the art museum into center city for work or for a doctor’s appointment. I know center city Philadelphia pretty well, but mostly from a walking perspective. I’m not a fan of driving it. The area around city hall causes me a little anxiety – it’s a square with inside and outside lanes, lots of pedestrian and bike traffic as well as people hurrying about the way people hurry about in a city. I never know where I can stop or what lane I should be in. In some respects, it reminds me of the circle in European Vacation – look kids, Big Ben, Parliament. I loved seeing her, but I never liked the logistics of picking her up or dropping her off. I tried my best not to let the latter overshadow the former. Driving and parking and living in the city wasn’t something I had gotten practiced at – maybe I would have grown more accustomed to it. In one instance, I believe we were going to a medical center for some tests when she said she appreciated the ride but if I was going to stress her out about traffic and driving, she’d rather just go alone. It was a fair enough statement – though perhaps assumed bad intentions on my part. I wasn’t trying be selfish or put my concerns over hers or to cause additional stress. I was probably having trouble tucking in my own anxieties.
In the end, she left and said something to the effect that she loved me but hated the way we live together – which I then interpreted as I hate living with you – which I then further interpreted as I hate all of the little quirks and hang-ups that you have. After she left, she said she saw how much patience she would need to put up with me…. When I think about my quirks and anxieties, when I ask myself why my worries show up in the ways they show up, or why I need to be early for my appointment, or know where to park, or care if I’m in someone’s way, I return to these two phrases like a tongue pushing on a sore tooth. Prior to her, I’m not sure I was terribly aware of these cute little anxieties of mine. In her wake, I’ve become hyper aware (and a little critical) of them. I suspect on some level, I had hoped that they’d dull over time or that she’d get used to them, or that we’d teach each other new ways of being – that the clenched fist would relax. That might have been expecting too much – it certainly would have needed more time.
Searching for a Source
I’ve spent some time not only trying to recognize when these intrusive/anxious thoughts pop up, but also trying to figure out where they might have come from. As best as I can tell they seem centered on two themes: performance/success/failure and being in the way/putting others out. If I had to guess, I suspect those anxieties (especially the ones tied to failure, or struggling with new experiences, or not knowing what to do or where to go) stem from how my father treated, praised, and punished success and failure. He would sometimes call people dumb or stupid or morons. He sometimes focused more on success or failure as opposed to effort and progress. He didn’t think twice about publicly ridiculing people (family, friends, strangers) – thankfully we were seldom in public. I can hear his voice incredulously asking, “how could you be so stupid?” – which is dismissive of the learning process. We are all, at one point, stupid in most things. And I know that on a fundamental level, he knows that. I suspect what he, and many people of his generation, believed was good parenting (teaching us to toughen up, rub some dirt on it, build a thick skin) may have inadvertently dissuaded me from trying hard/new things just beyond my reach (or at least caused anxiety about the limits of my own knowledge, experience, and prospects for success). I don’t think it’s any surprise that the one thing he often praised me for (my ability to write) is one of the things I pursue… while one of the things I was frequently ridiculed for (my lack of a sense of direction) is something that I feel insecure about. I also don’t think it’s terribly surprising that having experienced some instability as a child, I often look to arrive, prepared, at a place of comfort before I take risks or enjoy the present moment. It’s as if I need some level of success or proficiency before I ever admit I tried. Like so many of us, I was taught that adage, “practice makes perfect” when maybe we should have focused on practice makes better. In my father’s worldview, most things are about some form of competition and comparison and the overall outcome (seldom the journey). These are among his complex multitudes, because he also believes in education for the sake of education and that how you play the game may be more important than winning. As such, I can tell you that my brother was a better hitter in baseball, but I might have been the better pitcher (neither of us were as good as our dad). I can tell you that my brother had a better sense of direction, but I was the better writer. We both got bad grades but were well-behaved and thoughtful. Neither of us lived up to our potential – at least that’s how the story mostly goes.
It would be unfair to pin these “hang-ups” on those experiences alone. Our neuroses, while rooted in childhood, are cultivated over a lifetime of experiences – and usually become more entrenched as we age. I suppose the question many of us face is, how to own them, adapt to them, laugh at them, and understand them…. And then be patient as we recognize that other people are going through the exact same thing with their own set of anxieties. I hope I’m not insufferable, but the comment about not having the patience to put up with me echos and gives me pause every time I lose patience with myself (tongue, meet sore tooth).
I like to believe that we’re all learning and we’re all deserving of grace and patience. Where those two things seem to wear thin is when we have higher expectations (mostly with our loved ones… we expect them to know better). I was looking for a parable about children being told “you should have known better” that I swore was in the book Be the Person You Want to Find when I came across a page that eerily hits on this reconciliation that I’ve been trying to “navigate.”
At the beginning of our relationship…. I feel as if I am on vacation, and I hope it never ends.
After a while (weeks, months, years?), it begins to feel less like a vacation. In fact, it feels like I have returned home and gone back to work. This exciting, intimate relationship has become a chore much of the time.
In this, I have shifted identities, but you have not.
I have come back to being the person I usually am, but you have not.
Perhaps we have both shifted identities, but our “usual selves” don’t get along as well as our “in love selves.”
Perhaps I have returned to being my “responsible adult” identity, and you are now, in my eyes, someone who needs too much time and attention, and I am not pleased at having to give you that.
I’ve been trying to be more aware of how often I “hear” that refrain of “but I hate the way we live together.” Despite my best efforts, it’s become part of my self-talk – something that I hear almost every day… and because there was no specific issue like being messy or rude to friends or having an eye for other women, I apply the saying to almost any of my behaviors that I, or someone else, might find annoying or intolerable (mild anxiety included). I’m sometimes worry that nobody will have the patience and the problem with not having patience for the people we care about is that it leaves no room for error or growth. It takes on the posture of certainty that “they should have known better or tried harder or that they acted with malice and intent.” When I catch myself heading down this path, I try to do two things. First, I try to show myself some grace and remind myself that I happen to like my approach to life and the way I live – it has authenticity, sincerity, openness, and patience. Second, I try to assume that I may have said something as equally detrimental to, or been just as impatient with someone I’ve cared about. In doing this, I can avoid feeling like the victim and can remind myself to move forward more kindly with everyone I encounter. Here at the end of the long and short of my tiny anxieties, I’m thinking about our individual multitudes and how we might find appreciation where exists disdain or impatience. I’m reminded of the Thich Nhat Hanh quote “to love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love” and also of a poem I recently came across, “The Lovers”
I was always afraid
-Timothy Liu
of the next card
the psychic would turn
over for us-
Forgive me
for not knowing
how we were
every card in the deck.