Breathe In, Breathe Out

This is me not panicking. This is me not staring at my calendar, feeling hopelessly behind already and wondering why the hell I decided to do this in the first place. Honest. None of that's happening.

Hell, who am I kidding? I may have felt totally and completely in control this time yesterday, but this shit is intimidating. I have 3 major papers, a group presentation, 4 midterms, 6 practical assignments (3 of which involve using software I encountered for the first time today, let alone all the microphones and wires associated with getting the material I need to edit). All of this by Christmas. While keeping myself fed, watered, exercised, and in clean clothes and a clean house with not too many dirty dishes in the sink. Oh, and sane. Sane is good too.

I know, in my head, that I can do this. I've handled this kind of thing before, in fact, so far, I've done almost exactly this four times. And it has all worked out fine. And I did not feel like I did nothing but work. I will be okay, I know this.






You're waiting for the "but", aren't you? I know I am. There's no "but".





...however, (which is not "but") the fact that I know I can handle this does not stop me from looking at the calendar I've just finished updating and feeling like there cannot possibly be enough time in the next 11 weeks to do everything on my task list, let alone keep up with the readings and all the things associated with being a grown-up, independent, living-on-her-own woman. Like laundry and grocery shopping. Roommates do have their uses. There's something to be said for only having to do a third of the chores.

So I now have some meditation recordings, the stuff to pack my lunches and chill out on campus reading/writing/'rithmetic-ing(...?) in between classes. I stared down a psychologist today. Repeatedly. Apparently I'm ballsier than I thought. But I already knew that.

I'm going to fight down this silly panic monster. I'm going to drink hot chocolate, eat ice cream, lift weights, and sleep well. I'm going to kill my own bugs, set my own mousetraps, and slay my own dragons. This is going to be my year.

Whether it likes it or not.
Daydream Believer

It's Easy Once You Know How It's Done

Don't tell anyone, but I've got everybody fooled. I know, it was news to me too. My ex boyfriend/best friend in town, my friends, my colleagues, my acquaintances, my professors, even a therapist who sat there patiently while I bawled my eyes out over nothing, they all agree that I'm put together, high-functioning, in control, attractive, fiercely independent, and generally healthy.

In other words: I am projecting the image I have always striven to. I'm not sure this one can be wholly attributed to mascara. (Eye makeup=confidence. Confidence=beauty. Beauty + Confidence = Power. therefore Eye makeup = beauty, confidence, and ultimately power, but that's another day's theory). Even though I generally feel like the world is crumbling in various concentrations from a few pebbles off the parapets to the entire keep collapsing, unless I come right out and say it, nobody seems to notice that I'm a panicked, stressed mess feeling entirely out of control and as though nothing will sort itself out and it's all just too much.

Fan-fucking-tastic. And I do mean that with all sincerity. This week alone, I ran for student government (elections next week, I'll keep you posted), schmoozed with a couple of different roomfuls of strangers, some of whom didn't share a language with me, some of whom hold power over whether or not I graduate as scheduled, I flirted (the fact that my most success was with gay men and other women's boyfriends be damned, I still count this a victory) and did the latter in heels, without stumbling, twisting my ankle, or falling (in fairness, my final victorious step out of the bar was truncated by my ass hitting the concrete as I missed the inch and a half step between one level of the patio and the other, but I'm counting it a flawless night regardless). I'm on fire. I didn't have to force a smile. I didn't stumble and mince around and have to make the "Sorry, could you slow down, I'm wearing heels" excuses. And just today, I auditioned for something I was pretty sure I wouldn't get. And you know what? I'm in. I signed the dotted line, and I'm going to get paid. That's right, Daydream Believer can now call herself a professional actor.
But it seems I was a pretty decent actor all along.

Daydream Believer