Had lunch with an old friend today. It did wonders in reducing my anxiety. It had been a super-busy morning — I said it’s like I did eight hours’ worth of work in four — and it was just good to chill the hell out and talk about nothing in particular.
I may need to do that more often.
We were talking about my need/desire to get the hell out of Dodge, and he agreed that Virginia is clearly calling me home for a while.
So I mentioned to Mom that, hey, all signs seem to be pointing due north for me. Whereupon I get the whole “You’re going to lose your job — they’re going to think you want to move back” and “You don’t have the money” and “We can’t even afford to eat and you want to go on vacation” and “Oh but have you paid off the IRS yet” and “Well don’t you need a car first” and “Well you were miserable when you lived there, weren’t you” and “You don’t have vacation time — you want to come back and find that they’ve hired someone else” and “You’re miserable no matter where you are” and “There you go trying to revolve your life around other people’s schedules when you should be focusing on working harder.”
My anxiety shot through the roof. My depression actually wasn’t sure whether it should take root or remain in a suspended state of BAFFLEMENT, so I went from wanting to die to wanting to stay at work six more hours.
And we wonder why I’m just a teensy bit on edge?
I’m having dinner with another old friend tomorrow. I know that people come and go in my life and I really hope that they stop the “going” part because I need things to look forward to and while I don’t expect a soul to save me, I can’t paint the mental picture of the life I want when I’m continually thinking up ways to avoid or otherwise escape the one I have.