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It’s been a weirdly calm week. What I mean is, I’ve been calm.
Wednesday morning, for example. I dropped the girls off at daycare. Then I went to the grocery store, the bank, then CVS. When I was told my prescription wouldn’t be ready for another twenty minutes and the pharmacist asked if I’d like to wait, my mind started doing the thing it normally does – calculating.
It was almost 11. The morning already gone. If I left now, when would I come back? Would I leave early to pick the girls up and get it on the way? Was it worth just going tomorrow?
Then another voice in my head said: What’s the rush? Where are you even going?
I told him I’d stay.
The only people you ever see sitting in the two empty chairs off the side are older people. Young people never wait. Because sitting and waiting means stopping. And stopping usually leads to thinking. And as I sat there, I started thinking about my life. Where I was. How I get here.
I had my second therapy appointment the day before. It started snowing as I was driving there and I felt myself getting anxious. I was wondering if the school would call. If they’d need to be picked up early.
My therapist asked why I was anxious when I arrived. I told her this. She said that was normal. She asked me where else I think this anxious feeling keeps coming from. I told her it’s the confusion of this new state or phase I’m in. I’m a writer but a mom. I don’t make enough money to have the freedom to say I’m working full-time but I also need the same amount of time as my working husband to write. I feel conflicted all the time. Should I be writing or cleaning? Mothering or working?
I told her when I got home from therapy it would be 3:30. The kids would be home by 5. That gave me an hour and a half. Before I left, I noticed the pile of laundry hanging out the dryer. The unpacked dishwasher. The dirty kitchen. I told her I felt I had two choices. Either I go home and do all the chores, clean the house, and feel resentful and annoyed I didn’t write. Or I write, and ignore the chores, and feel guilty.
Well, she said. Looks like you’re just gonna have to choose which emotion you’re willing to accept.
She went on to tell me my anxiety is part of my refusal to accept, adapt and recognize that I am in a new phase. A phase that is not going to change. I need to make a decision. If I’m going to be a writer, then accept that and be it. Yes, it’s harder now. Yes, it feels weird not having a full-time gig to rely on. Yes, I feel guilty that my kids are in daycare and I’m at home. But I won’t move at all if I stay in this limbo. If I obsess about doing everything and keep ending every day doing nothing.
While I was replaying this conversation, an older woman with Tourettes or some personality disorder in a large fur coat was screaming about Vitamins and rolling her cart towards the empty plastic chair next to mine.
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