Life is but a dream (ish)

I wish someone would have warned me that college doesn't really prepare us for the real world. 

HOLD ON!  Don't freak.  Stay with me.  Let me explain.  

College did a lot of things for me.  I learned a lot (DUH, I should hope so... otherwise that was an expensive way to pass some time).  I learned how to be a professional.  I learned how to form my own ideas/opinions/beliefs and gained the confidence necessary to share them sometimes.  I learned how to communicate effectively and work well with others.  I learned how to respect and value diverse perspectives and viewpoints.  I learned how to save money (the hard way).  I learned - SPOILER ALERT: A LOT OF CHEESINESS LIES AHEAD - how to love and cherish people, count my blessings, connect with my spirituality, recover from heartaches, make an impact in my communities, etc., etc.  And on June 11, 2011, I graduated a changed woman.

So what did I do with this??  I went out into the world without fear of consequence.  Knowing full-well I could do absolutely anything I put my mind to.  I just ROCKED IT.  I was a shining example of grace and confidence at all times.  I never feared the future, because I knew I had it made.  I was almost too successful.  I laughed in the face of stress.  I finally understood what "Row, row, row your boat" was talking about.  Life really is "but a dream."  Everything was absolute perfection.  

... Haaaa!!  NOPE!  Nope nope nope.  Not.  Sike!  Got ya!  Did I have you convinced?  Because NO, NO, NO.

That's not how it happened.

Now don't let my sarcasm and the first sentence of this post fool you.  Those things I learned in college are all GREAT, marketable skills and pearls of wisdom. And I really was a changed woman.  And the idea behind all that growth and knowledge is to be prepared to step out on one's own and take on the "cold, cruel world" and kick its you-know-what.  And I'm getting better and better at that every day, I really am.  It's just been really, REALLY hard for me.  Really freakin hard.  And I bet I'm not alone.  And that's what inspired me to start this blog.  More about that later...

I am such a worrier.  Like, we're talking huge.  I am really super good at it actually.  I can worry about just about anything.  Useless - Important - Big - Small - Happy - Sad.  You name it, I'll worry about it.  I could join the circus or something.  "Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls!  Step right up to see the AMAZING Anxious Andie!  Watch as she turns your ordinary, every-day thoughts into debilitating and all-consuming fears!"  Okay that would be weird and who wants to pay to see that?  But I'm trying to paint a picture here - we're not talking your average, run-of-the-mill worrying.  It's a whole lot bigger than that.  Here we go, folks.

Anxiety is something I have been dealing with for most all of my life, but it wasn't until it really started knocking me down and kicking the crap out of me and calling me names and giving me swirlies in the bathroom at lunchtime like a big fat BULLY that I realized it was much more than being a "worry wart" (gross).  After I graduated and got a job and moved for that job and started a new life, Anxiety chased after me like a little kid chases the ice cream man on a hot Spokane summer afternoon.  You feel me?  It was serious.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was grieving a significant loss.  The loss of my community, the loss of my cute little home in my cute little neighborhood with my wonderful roommates and an incredible community of friends just - literally - a stone's throw away.  And then, just like that, it was gone.  And on top of grieving that loss, I was starting a new job, paying for allllllllll my own bills/student loans/car insurance/ etc. for the first time, blah blah blah.  I "blah, blah, blah" my situation because it's everybody's situation.  I am certainly not the only one working and missing the simplicity of college life and paying bills and wahh wahh wahhhhhh.  And you know what's weird?  That fact, the one about being in the same boat as everyone else, made it so much harder.  "If __________ can do it, why the heck can't I???" was a common thought in my head.  It was so hard to look at my community and see others who were also successful and think, "Gosh, so-and-so sure seems happy.  I wish I wasn't such a whiney little baby."  I was so darn upset all the time that absolutely EVERYTHING was a big deal.  We're talking everything.  Any sort of decision-making involved a pit in my stomach, obsessive analysis, weighing of pros and cons and what-ifs and if-nots and quite often (too often), even tears.  I don't just mean big decisions like "Where should I live?" or "Who should I vote for?"  We're talking things like "What laundry detergent should I buy?" or "What do I REALLY want for dinner?" and "Do I REALLY want a pumpkin spice latte or should I save my $4 because that's just silly?"  I'm serious.  Remember what I said about joining the circus?  It was quite the spectacle.  I can specifically remember a time when I needed to go to the bank, thinking they closed at 5:30, and pulled up at 5:15 only to find out they really closed at 5.  No big deal, right?  Well that day it was a big deal and I dissolved into tears right there in my car.  I cried.  TEARS!  Did I desperately need the money I was about to deposit?  For a big purchase I was to make that evening?  Or to wire to a friend in a foreign country who was facing a dire emergency?  No.  Was it catastrophic to wait until the next day?  Absolutely not.  But I had planned on going to the bank THAT night, for the love of Pete!  And that was enough.  And that's how things were.  My stress cup was so darn full that even the smallest little drop would overflow it and ruin my day.  It was bad.  Really bad.  It was so much easier to see the "glass half empty" (except for that stress glass I just referenced... that one was always full and that's the only way I ever saw it).  If something made me happy or excited, I couldn't feel that way for too long before I remembered that there surely must be something I should be worried about, and I would force myself through a mental checklist of possible stressors until I was keyed-up and anxious once again.  Yikes, right??  YEAH yikes.

Now here's the good news.  As you might have noticed, I reference these occasions and states of mind mostly in past tense.  That's because frankly, for the last six months or so, I have been kicking my anxiety in the backside HARD.  By way of a process which I will probably talk more about later - but am happy to answer questions about NOW, if you have them :) - I have discovered that sometimes I just feel anxious because my brain chemistry is wonky. Wonky. As. HELL.  My messed up and irritable serotonin-eating Mood Monster is a selfish cotton-headed-ninny-muggins and gobbles it all up faster than my brain can produce it, which kept me from seeing the lights at the ends of those scary metaphorical tunnels and made it hard to see that everything is really pretty ok.  Great, even!  Which is why my Mood Monster and its ravenous and outlandish appetite have been put on a strict diet and are on the mend, finally listening to me and allowing me to be myself.

For a while I was not me.  I was NEG-A-TIVE.  Big time.  I kept my head down at Starbucks and the grocery store and even at work sometimes, keeping my interactions to a minimum and living inside my own head in a sad, scared, lonely little one-woman world.  Whew!  It wasn't good!  And I know there will be people very close to me who read this and think, "WHAT??  Why didn't she call me?  I had no idea she was so miserable!  I should have noticed and helped."  And to you, my lovelies, I say:   You helped.  YOU HELPED.  Ohhhhh, how you helped.  Because what I needed was not to talk more about my anxiety and have you feel sad and weird around me and not want to tell me things for fear that they would stress me out.  Not while my Mood Monster was running amuck, anyway.  That's just what that little &%$!@ wanted.  What I needed was your love and companionship and late-night talks and coffee dates and long walks and tennis matches and movie nights and Mariners games and weekend concerts and phone chats and reassurance that I was not alone in that sad little place.  So you helped.  If there's one blessing I have NEVER doubted or forgotten about, even in my saddest of states, it's my community.  And that's why I write this today.  

Some people don't have a supportive and loving community like the one I just bragged about.  Or at least they THINK they don't.  So that's why I'm saying, HERE I AM!!!  HERE WE ARE!!!  This world of Anxiety and/or Depression is not a small deserted island; It's a booming metropolis full of thousands and thousands of people who don't know it's ok to talk about their serotonin-eating Mood Monsters!  Well NEWSFLASH - we're here.  We're all here.  And our Mood Monsters can GET A LIFE.  Maybe you suffer from severe, diagnosable Anxiety, Depression, and/or another condition which keeps you from being who you are, OR maybe you don't have circus-act-worthy stresses to write home about but you're just temporarily sad and fearful of the future and could use an encouraging word every once-in-a-while.  Overcoming these things is TOUGH, TOUGH, TOUGH.  And I would never EVER want to downplay a serious condition and its effects by claiming that a blog full of stories and encouraging words could ever provide a complete, comprehensive, or sustainable cure.  Because it SO cannot.  But it can help validate and it can help add some strength in numbers and it can (hopefully) help someone recognize bits of their own experiences in the retelling of mine and others', and encourage them to reach out for help or a hug when necessary.  

I was in a real bad way for a while there.  A reallllll bad way.  And now I have never felt more like me.  I am positive and confident and outgoing and life-loving, but for a while I was the opposite.  I love people.  I love loving people, I love learning about people, I love learning about the people I love and loving the people I learn about (What?  Sorry if I lost you there).  Essentially what I'm saying is that I wandered away from myself for a while, but now I am back.  Or at least getting there.  And my whole point in sharing all of this with you is that I sincerely hope, from the bottom of my healing heart, that maybe a forum for encouragement and positivity can help others find their way back too.  

So if you can relate to post-college worries and insecurities and sadness and discouragement and the chronic condition known as WHAT-THE-HECK-HAVE-I-GOTTEN-MYSELF-INTO-itis, I want to hear about it.  I bet a lot of people want to hear about it.  So tell me!  And I will share it.  Right here.  On this blog. This blog about big kid stuff and the fact that it's easier to be independent if we go about it together (Get it??  SO ironic and clever...)  If you want to share anonymously, that's perfectly fine.  I just want to hear your story.  Though I will probably give you a super funny fake name like Alison Wonderland or something because hey,  I still have really anxious days sometimes and those kinds of pick-me-ups are important too.  

I really mean it.  Email me.  AndieLovesCompany@gmail.com. I really made that email address just for this so don't let it go to waste!  How embarrassing would that be??  And don't make me pretend like I am sharing "anonymous" stories when really I'm just giving myself a fake name and telling you more about me (KIDDING, I will never do that.  Promise).  

Tell me about things!  Feelings!  Stresses!  Victories!  Stories!  Happiness!  Sadness!  Real life!  I am going to try my best to make posts as happy and hopeful as realistically possible, since I know on my most anxious of days I cannot hear negativity and icky things without wanting to cry/puke/curl into a little ball and whimper, so just know that.  I want real, but I don't want unnecessary roughness (to put it to you in sports terms... I'm trying to relate to large audiences here).  I promise I will rarely, if ever write more posts this long, and I will mix it up with pictures, videos, quotes, funny things, real-life journal entries from rough days of my recent past (YEESH!  Scary.  But really, I will... that's next on the agenda in fact). I am both impressed and sorry if you kept reading and made it this far, as I do not want to bore you or assume you care about all my thoughts and worries and big kid stuff.  But I figure, if I am asking you to be honest about your experiences and share with me, the LEAST I can do is the same.  Just because we're taught to be independent at this stage of life, doesn't mean we have to go about it alone.

Because sometimes Independence Loves Company.  Or at least I do.

Much love, my nerds.

- Andie.