Anxiety

I’m stealthy. I’ve always been good at keeping secrets — hiding things. I hid my feelings of guilt and shame about my father’s suicide when I was a kid by telling people all about it as soon as I got comfortable with them. If I told them the story quickly, and without a lot of feelings, then they would think I was over it — that I’d made peace with it. I told people that it was something that had happened, matter of factly, like it was as insignificant as what I’d had for breakfast. ...

Things are really hard right now. Every day, I feel overwhelmed. Like so many others, I’m navigating uncharted waters without so much as a compass. The uncertainty of the moment weighs heavily on my mind and the challenges we face as a family feel insurmountable. It’s a game of wack-a-mole. ...

“Hi, welcome to Seastreak. Do you have a reservation?” “Yes, we’re on the 2 PM to Martha’s Vineyard.” “Okay, parking is down the street for $13 a day, or we can valet it for $25 a day.” ...

It’s June. The 6th month of the year. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere will be celebrating the start of summer with the summer solstice. Those in the Southern Hemisphere are headed into winter. Of course, in the 12 step world, we often focus on a step and a tradition each month. Naturally, meetings are focused on the sixth step in June, where we humbly ask the good of our understanding to remove our defects of character. I’m still fuming. ...

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity, thoughts, and a bit of confusion. I left for my annual sales conference in Miami on Wednesday of last week. I consciously chose not to get up for my morning meeting because I knew that I had a long day ahead of me filled with airplanes, Uber rides, meetings, cocktail hour, and a dinner. Wait, what? Cocktail hour? Sober people go to cocktail hours? Yes, sometimes we do when we have a good reason to be there, and a work event is generally a good reason. That doesn’t mean that we drink, it just means we show up. Sometimes you have to suit up and show up. So I went to cocktail hours on Wednesday and Thursday of last week, and had non-alcoholic drinks. My non-alcoholic drinks of choice were, club soda and lime, Red Bull, Ginger Ale, and Espresso. The meetings were generally good. I found that I was much more able to focus on the content being presented because I was actually present. I wasn’t hungover. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t tired. I actually had a pretty good time and tweeted about it: ...