Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional. That's right... I'm fine.

I’ll admit I picked the college I’m going to on a whim. I picked it and then blindly announced that I absolutely loved this place. Much like falling in love via the internet and then learning that that dashing person you met online is actually a creepy fifty year old man who god only knows in no way resembles the pictures. I don’t mean to compare this school to a pervy old man that immediately after meeting you rush to escape and pray that absolutely no one you know learns about the incident because this school is beautiful and interesting and not at all creepy. However it was something I was seeing from only one angle and that angle was directly in front of my computer. 

As I was walking which is more complicated than it sounds as I have five blisters strategically placed on each foot and glancing at my arms as it became readily apparent which spots I had missed in my heavy and I do mean heavy application of sunscreen ignoring the pounding heat of a place that actually breaks 80 degrees I realized how little I had thought this out. Sure in deciding not to go to Anchorage I got to avoid any encounters with the campus moose though I admit that they seem cute and cuddly now that I have moved somewhere where I jump at every sprinkler because I am absolutely certain it is probably a snake and that snake is definitely poisonous and out to get me and that is terrifying. It’s just hard to realize that you’re stepping into reality instead of a fantasy. That is what this is now. Reality. 

I’m trying. I actually sent an email so that I could start driver’s ed. They called me back though my phone was dead at the time and asked me to call them so we could set something up. I’m going to take care of that today. Hopefully. I might chicken out and just do it tomorrow but I will definitely get it done. It’s just for some reason I thought that I would be an entirely different person in a different setting. I’m not. 

The only difference between here and there besides the fact that these places are polar opposites which really is a small insignificant detail when I’m not gasping out in the sun like a fish out of water is that here I actually have a chance to change.  So I’ll do it. I just won’t promise that I’m not going to be freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.

New Beginnings and Rain-Soaked Bittersweet Endings

All things must come to an end sooner or later. I personally had always preferred the exits into the sunset on a beach myself, but that was never going to be how my life in this rainy little town in Alaska was going to end. Two reasons come to mind: if I even attempted to walk on the rocks we call a beach here at sunset I would no doubt biff it and fall headlong onto yet another barnacle covered rock and have to limp my way off the beach clinging to the hope that no one saw a thing, and the second is that no moment in my life that springs to mind has ever occurred in the sun.  I’m tempted to think it’s just because the rain made things more memorable but the truth is the moment the sun comes out I have a tendency to run for cover like a hundred year old vampire. Oh how it burns. With this in mind I admit I am getting quite the send- off from this little old town.

For years I have stayed in this place I know I’m not meant to be not because I love the area though it holds many fond memories and quite a few that I wish would be forgotten for instance the eighth grade survival trip springs to mind, but because while I would like to pretend that it was for personal growth or some other beautiful bit of nonsense truth is that I was just stuck.  I could blame it on my thyroid problem.  I’m exhausted and there is no doubt in my mind that my thyroid levels are off and I will always blame that gross sweaty feeling I get after exercise on my inability to regulate my temperature because I maintain that there is just nothing natural about that feeling. It’s gross and disturbing and yes I am going to choose to blame in on a flaw in my health. It’s my disease I’ll use it however I see fit. But even with the downsides of Grave’s disease the real problem is my anxiety.

Ask me to call you and I’ll sit for hours in a blind panic. Scheduling in my mind the right time to call you and then finding an excuse not to. I can’t make a five minute phone call because I need to be folding socks right this minute you know and clearly it’s impossible to do both things at once.  God forbid anything leads to a confrontation.  I can go from perfectly fine to crying in just under ten seconds. You can test it if you’d like just start yelling at me.  I dare you.  Let’s not even get started on driving. You really want me to get into a car like a normal person and start driving? No I just don’t think so.  I’m going to need an official instructor and a course that teaches actual skills. I don’t find it reassuring to hear that the driver’s ed teacher in this little puddle of a town passes absolutely everyone. That is so not helpful. Every one of my problems with anxiety from swimming to driving has a reasonable excuse. So it is that I find myself doing all these things at 22 rather than at the “appropriate” ages. It’s something I’m working on and don’t you dare tell me it’s easy. Even worse are all the understanding expressions. At this point I’m working to get myself together so I don’t need to know that I’m understood though that is wonderful, but I need to know that I’m moving forward.

So here it is my attempt to start something new. I have two main goals for every week. Face something that gives me some anxiety and change something small to make myself a little bit healthier. This is all about new beginnings and rain-soaked bittersweet endings.