you're going to die

Until reading Tina Fey's book, Bossypants, I sometimes wondered if I was the only feminist, bossy, funny, anxiety-driven/ridden human being on the planet (who happens to have a scar on their face that people often ask about). Actually, I never wondered that until just now, but it seemed like a good way to start off this blog, even if what you're about to read is loosely connected to the introduction... at best. Plus, who doesn't want to draw comparisons between themselves and the Fey?

Let's just focus on the anxiety part. All my life, I've been a super anxious worry-wart, up until about 3 years ago when I started mellowing out to a regular old anxious worry-wart. When I was a little Wes, I would lie in bed at night, unable to go to sleep as I worried, anxiously, that I wouldn't have enough sleep to be good tomorrow at school, and then that would set off a chain reaction and I wouldn't be good the day after tomorrow, and slowly, my grades would fall and fall until I ended up living in a trailer park with a beer belly, married to a woman (?) with 7 kids (?). I would probably also end up a hoarder. I would get so worked up that I would start to cry, come downstairs in my tighty-whities and beg and plead my parents for help. Sometimes, they drugged me and gave me Benadryl. Other times, they tried not to laugh and told me to "rub my feet together" (doesn't work). Other other times, they would tell me to "stop freaking out and go to bed."

When the whole scandal about pilots flying the day after they had Benadryl and how they'd fall asleep mid-flight thing happened, I could just picture my mom peering from side to side as she dumped the Benadryl down the toilet and furiously going back in the annals of her mind to see if she had shared it as a "useful parenting tip" with other mothers.

Now, it's not like I had a Tiger Mom or anything. My parents didn't saddle me with pressure or responsibility, even. I was like 6. They also didn't take me to a child psychologist when I would come downstairs sobbing that people were cutting down the rainforests and soon there wouldn't be enough oxygen for the world to breathe and we'd all die. Fuck you, Fern Gully. I don't know, I probably would have been like "wow, this kid is fucked up. Get the 6 year old some mood stabilizers, NOW."

My anxiety would often get the best of me, as every mundane situation inevitably became a life or death situation. I still have a tendency to go to extremes when extremes aren't necessary. It's like deciding whether or not I should let a kid who is hyperventilating at one of the Friday night dance parties at work outside to get some fresh air (they're not allowed to leave unless they leave for the night). In my mind, I instantly go to something like prison. Well, if we let every prisoner out who wanted fresh air, there would be no prisons!! AHHHHH!

Kant we all follow the categorical imperative?

I think it really just helps me simplify a situation, if you can believe it. I get caught up in the details, and the "what if's!?" that if I don't have a massive, Holocaust-like situation to jump to, it's hard for me to make sense of it. I need universality. I need things to make sense on a universal level. I need the same rules to apply for everyone. I need the categorical imperative.

In my junior year of high school, shit started to get really real. As I was being forced (against my will - guidance counselors are demons in JC Penny power suits) to make decisions about college and the career I will hold for rest of my life I became so overwhelmed. The mere thought of not getting enough sleep could send me into hysterics, so imagine what deciding what college I wanted to go to and what career I wanted to have did to me. My anxiety is what drove me to write. I would start writing about what I felt to try to make sense of it because there was so much of it, which ended up becoming novellas which ended up becoming telanovellas (that's how dramatic they were), which ended up becoming encyclopedias of anxiety. And by the look and length of the entries on this blog, I still haven't learned to edit.

When I fell in love and had my first big, real relationship is when I started to let go of anxiety. It wasn't necessarily the joy of being in love that made me forget my worries, so much as it was I was more anxious and insecure and worrisome than ever before. Suddenly, at one point I just reached my limit and realized, very quickly, that there was shit in my life I could never control and most importantly, some things were only just for now. Including that relationship. I just said "Jesus, take the wheel" and since then, things have actually seemed to have gone better for me than ever before. Thank you, Jesus. Your driving skills are excellent. Now, I have that satisfying feeling of conquering anxiety and being able to condescendingly tell people who are worrying about things like terminal cancer, foreclosure, and divorce that this is all "just for now." "Anxiety will get you no where. Action will take you far."

I also realized that you Kant apply universal law to everything. Let the kid out for some fresh air if he can't fucking breathe. When I figured out that I couldn't control everything, then I suddenly wanted to control nothing.

When I was reading Tina's book (which is amazing, and you should go purchase immediately because no one watches 30 Rock and she has to support her daughter somehow) I was refreshed to see someone who clearly had (has?) anxiety issues and can laugh about them and how ridiculous they are. Because it's like this world is doing everything it can to grab your attention and be like "Hey! This is all ending! Casey Anthony is a free woman and YOU'RE GOING TO DIE." So, as soon as you realize that yes, you very well may be murdered by that woman, there is absolutely nothing you can really do about it so you might as well laugh and live your life as if a murderer wasn't searching the streets to find, torture, and eventually after a few weeks, kill you.

Author's note: I still freak out about not getting enough sleep.

Author's other note: My nightly freak outs were so frequent as a child that my parents videotaped me one time. I know what you're thinking: yes, my parents are amazing and yes, I was very cute in the midst of my 6 year old panic attack. If crying 6 year olds is your thing.