Seasons they are a-changin'

     It's an absolutely stunning October Sunday, early afternoon.  Only the wispiest wispy clouds paint the perfectly blue sky overhead, and this is Fall at its finest.  Here I sit in Starbucks, at a table adjacent to two high school seniors, overhearing them stress about the SATs.  And while I try not to laugh at "Seriously, I can't believe I'm here studying instead of getting my hair cut.  If I don't get above a 2000 I'm gonna be pissed," I feel for them.  I recognize the nervous hair twirls, overreactions to a difficult math problem, cute school supplies in an attempt to make studying a little bit fun - I've been there.  Many of us have.  They're buried in practice tests, textbooks, and the weight of impending doom college applications on the horizon.  I have a pit in my stomach for them.  For them and for me.  Because I have my own stomach-pit-worthy stressors to be stressin' about.  They came to Starbucks to do homework, think about colleges, and study for the SATs; I came to Starbucks to set my monthly budget, plan meals, and check work emails in preparation for a Federal audit.  There are at least three heads spinnin' up in here.  And more than once I have almost butted in to their study session to say, "Oh ladies, don't stress about the SATs.  I know it seems like a big deal right now.  And it's not a small deal.  But it will only impact your life for a little while and then life goes on.  You will look back on this stress and laugh."  I'm that person to them.  So I haven't said it...  Yet.  No promises that I'll be able to stifle it the whole time I'm sitting here though.  I just want them to go take a walk!  Laugh!  Sing!  Dance!  

     But we've all been there.  In the moment, it's a big frickin deal.  And our lives are designed that way.  Things are a BFD while they're happening, because they just are.  They demand our attention, and our mental capacities in those moments raise a white flag in surrender.  Ok, you got me.  You have my attention.  WHHHATTTTT?!?!  What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?  So we study.  We plan.  We stress.  Because after all, it still needs to get done.

[By the way, another young lady just came to join the two studying gals.  She's wearing True Religion jeans, and just pulled her iPhone 6 and her Coach wallet out of her Coach purse and took them up to the register to order her coffee.  So you can add bitterness and envy to the list of feelings I'm feeling as I set my Nonprofit Program Coordinator budget for the month... just bein' honest...]

One thing counseling taught me (one thing out of approximately 5.8 billion things... can you tell I'm an advocate for counseling??) is that I experience anxiety in a somewhat predictable, cyclical pattern.  There are really cool things about this, and there are really not cool things about this.  Cool that I can usually talk myself down in times of stress and distress by remembering "this is normal... I was expecting this... what helped me before?  I'll just do that again..." NOT cool that it just keeeeeeeeeps coming back!  But at least I know.  I am wired for it, it's who I am, it's part of me.  So I gotta learn to deal.  And for the most part, I have.  But if there's one thing we all know about those good-for-nothin' Mood Monsters, it's that sometimes they can't be tamed. 

I was always paaiiinfully stressed about school as a student.  I don't know if "stressed" is even the right word.  I think I'll call it "obsessive and terrified determination."  Yikes.  Anyway, the start of a new school year brought with it the start of ulcer-making season (though by the grace of God, I've never had one.  It's a miracle).  So guess what?  Every Fall brings with it a strange yin-and-yang situation for me.  I love Fall.  I looooooove it.  I am a pumpkin enthusiast, scarves are my favorite accessory, and beautiful knit sweaters make my heart skip a beat.  Don't even get me started on puffy vests.  But!  Even though I have been out of school for three years (what?!), Fall still gives me the homework heebie-jeebies, somewhere deep deep down in the dungeons of my subconscious (I think heebie-jeebies are kept in a nasty jar in Professor Snape's office, don't you?).  So stress always kinda spikes this time of year.  And now that I know that about myself, I can usually catch it and put it in its place before things get too out of control.  That's the good news.  But it took a lot of years and a lot of help and a lot of self-reflection to get to that place, as with any breakthrough in stress management. 

But what I'm trying to say with all these discombobulated paragraphs is this:  I often think to myself, Once I get through ______, everything will be fine again.  Once I have a higher-paying job, I finally won't be stressed about money any more.  Once I get back into shape, I'll finally stop worrying about how I look in these jeans.  Once I have a nicer car/wardrobe/body/hairstyle, I'll finally stop comparing myself to others.  But here's the thing:  Those sentences used to look more like these: Once I take the SATs, I'll finally get into college.  Once I graduate from college, I'll finally be done with homework.  Once I get through the stress of applications and interviews, I'll finally get a job... On and on and on and on and ONNNN.  You picking up what I'm laying down?  It never ends!  And as bleak and awful as that might sound at first, we seem to keep making it to the next stage.  But if you're like me, you get to the next stage and think, Gosh why did I have to make myself so miserable?  Stress will be there.  It will look different every few years, but it will be there.  And every phase is a little more grown-up and "real" than the last.  Budgets and mortgages and audits and car problems seem a lot less laughable than GPAs and SATs and college essays, and yet we weren't laughin' when they were staring us in the face.  We gotta give ourselves a break.  And permission to feel the stress.  But don't forget to stop and smell the Pumpkin Spice Lattes.  If we rush through one phase of stressors, a new one will greet us at the finish line.  And we'll handle them as they come.  So slow it down to a walk and take in some beauty along the way.

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.  Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.  The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.  So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes."      

 - J.K. Rowling 

Today's jams:

1. "Black Out Days" by Phantogram 
(if you want to feel like a bad ass
with the windows rolled down in your car)

2. "From Eden" by Hozier
(if you want to feel the last twitterpations of summer sunshine
with the windows rolled down in your car)

3. "Break Free" by Ariana Grande (duh)
(if you're not afraid to sing like a damn fool
with the windows rolled down in your car)

And here's a little something from me to you,
just in case you were feeling jam #3 and need a laugh... 

Happy Fall!

- Andie

A very important P.S. - As I have said before, if a dark cloud overhead is raining on your parade every moment of every day (figuratively or literally, as we are heading into some dark and dreary months), and you can never seem to chase it away with one single glimmer of sunshine, and no wordy blog post about taking it one day at a time, or happy song, or funny joke, or moving quote can help you see the light at the end of the tunnel, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  Please reach out.  Please talk to someone.  If you're too scared to go straight to the experts, you can start with me. AndieLovesCompany@gmail.com.  I will not pretend to have a solution, but I would be happy to help you look for one.