It is February, but here in Venice it’s been Spring for weeks. The good Spring too, the kind that’s warm and sunny and has everyone eating lunch outdoors. My favorite thing to do when the weather is like this is to take a walk – preferably before 10 a.m., when the streets are not yet crowded with thousands of tourists who arrive by boat and train. By noon, they are here and then it becomes harder to walk through Venice’s labyrinth of alleys and passageways without tripping over them. When the streets get that way, I give up on the walk and find a bar instead. A glass of wine costs about $3 including outdoor table service, so it’s not a bad backup plan. I pick a place specifically for the amenities, namely the presence sun and an unobstructed view of a canal, and then settle in with a book. Every time, without fail, as I sit down in the low wooden chair and turn my face up to the light, I can’t help but think: Where is my birth certificate?
Other questions follow, fast and steady, like machine gun fire.
If I need my birth certificate, how will I get it?
Will I need to fly back to the States to collect it?
Should I just do that now? I don’t need my birth certificate right this second, but that’s the point. You do things before you need to. Then it won’t be a problem later.
But, again, where is it? Have I ever even seen it?
What are my parents thinking, not showing me my birth certificate? What are they hiding… if they’re even my parents, that is.
Again, just to be clear, I don’t need my birth certificate. This is just the sort of thought that pops into my head occasionally, without warning or reason, along with the nagging feeling that I have left a small electrical appliance plugged in or that I have contaminated my entire kitchen with salmonella. You know, little things. Normal things.
Writing this entry is difficult because as I recall other examples of things that once worried me – a visa overstay, misplaced medication, a bank transfer to my investment portfolio – I become worked up all over again. I suspect this post will take days to finish, not because the words are hard to find but because I will need to stop every few sentences and confirm that everything is as it should be – that my checkbook is accounted for and the windows are locked. At some point, as I am walking through the kitchen to make sure the toaster is unplugged, I will see something mundane, like a half-rotten banana in my fruit bowl. It will remind me to text a friend that I have been meaning to contact for weeks. To me, the connection is clear: If I can ignore this banana and let it die right before my eyes, what does that say about the people in my life? Maybe I am failing them too.
While I wait for my friend’s reply, I pull a chair into my bathroom and stare at the washing machine. I had turned it on five minutes ago, during simpler times, and now it is making a noise I never heard before. Rationally, I know that it is probably OK. I have never met a washing machine that doesn’t sound like it is performing an exorcism on a box of nails. But still, I worry that this time is different. Maybe today is the day the machine overflows. Maybe this sound is the beginning of the end. You think life closes with a bang, but that might not be true. It might sound like a zipper repeatedly tapping against a window. The end might smell like soap.
This freight train of feelings has a name: Anxiety. I, like so many Americans, have a monthly pass to ride its rails. I’ve taken trips, long and short, many times before – sometimes twice a day. I know every inch of the tracks, its bumps and shifts, the way it speeds up after dark or upon receiving a telephone call from an unknown number. Nowadays, the train has WiFi and you’d think that would help but it doesn’t. Information – facts and figures – they are of no use with Anxiety. In fact, using Google in the middle of a panic attack is basically just feeding the beast.
The odd thing about my particular brand of anxiety is that I know none of it is rational. Never, not once, have my worst fears been realized. I haven’t had cancer or gotten fired or went broke – at least not yet. I haven’t crashed a car into a snow bank or lost my passport or been kidnapped at gunpoint. That I have always made it safely to the other side should bring me comfort – convince me, even – that my worst fears are unfounded. And yet, it doesn’t. No amount of logic or reason can assure me that my worry du jour is unfounded.
In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The longer I go without a problem, the greater my sense of impending doom. The more time that passes without a health scare or a lost job or a stolen identity, the better the chance that some such catastrophe is just around the corner. I am happy with my life right now – that’s the real problem. Because if life is up and down, then things will have to even out soon enough. Hence the reason, maybe, for my thoughts about the birth certificate and the checkbook. When this train goes off the track – and eventually it will – I need to be ready. I want to have two forms of ID and one payment type that most people are too lazy to steal from a piece of hand luggage.
I love the reaction I get when I tell people that I am prone to anxiety. I know that many of them have experienced it themselves, and yet they seem so surprised to learn that it has a hold on other people too – people they don’t expect, like the ones who swap countries as often as most people change their sheets and people who put on lipstick every day and tell stories on the internet and speak in hyperbolic terms. All kinds of people!
The idea that anxiety should be obvious is a myth. More often than not, you won’t notice it in another person unless they tell you about it. Speaking from experience, if someone mentions their anxiety, the best response is to simply listen. Now is not the best time to wonder aloud how a person with anxiety can also have a 10-step skincare routine and a gym membership. Because that’s just another myth about anxiety – that it’s ugly and lazy its people are too. We expect anxiety to be a crippling and all-consuming presence, but that’s not always the case either. For some people, anxiety comes as an attack. A newly purchased denim jacket and a fresh manicure may be nice to look at, but it’s not armour. It won’t save you from the thoughts if and when they come. Sometimes a person can go days, weeks even, traveling through several countries before their fears catch up with them, demanding to know: When was the last time you ran your credit report?
For me, the only way I can control my anxiety is to distract myself from it. I stay busy as a precaution; I keep active as a form of therapy. I write, I run, I read. I do my laundry by hand, wringing my feelings out over a plastic basin and then sending them down the drain. It’s a lot more work, physically speaking, but it’s far less energy than worrying about a flood.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a mile to run… and a cliff to avoid.
Ahhhh yes. I feel like you just reached deep into my brain and found the tangled clump of yarn and started pulling.
…wait… do you think it’s possible that there’s something weird that has inserted itself into my brain? Like through my ear canal? I think I saw that on an episode of House once….
Eff.
I don’t know if that’s possible but whatever you do, DO NOT GOOGLE IT. WE WILL BE ON THE ROAD TO CERTAIN DEATH WITHIN MINUTES. Thank you for understanding.
xx
Thank you for this, I hope one day is generally understood that anxiety takes many forms and affects all kinds of people.
I hope so too… and I think most people agree because SPOILER: IT’S EVERYONE. EVERYONE HAS ANXIETY. The sooner we start being honest about mental health and acknowledging the issues, the better.
Well said. As always.
why thank you, xx
I totally agree with hiw anxiety works. I’ve only recently given in when depression added to the mix and now i take medicine. It’s completely trial and error…lots of error but for the first time the incessant noise has been turned down. Not off, but the noise is able to be handled instead of sending me into a tizzy about everything I’m focusing and none of it is it front of me. Will the meds work in the end? Who knows, but i get it.
hello & thanks for sharing. I’m glad you found something that is helping. I wish you continued progress. one day at a time. xx