Kicking the Habit

A few times every year, I have to go through the great nightstand purge. It’s like thinning a row of new-sprouted seeds: each little plant holds promise, but having them all furiously metabolizing at once just empties out the soil and needlessly pits them against each other. Better to pull a few to foster the rest, then try again with a fresh flat.

I’m fast approaching another thinning, as books have begun to teeter by the head of the bed and have staked out acreage on the floor below. One that will likely be thinned is a used book store find, Florence King‘s anthology STET, Damnit! Our sociopolitical differences aside, the curmudgeon in me is amused by her columns, and it’s a book I’ll probably keep coming back to until I (eventually) finish it. For tonight, just a little morsel that I’ve been thinking over:

“The American way of stress is comparable to Freud’s ‘beloved symptom’, his name for the cherished neurosis that a patient cultivates like the rarest of orchids and does not want to be cured of. Stress makes Americans feel busy, important, and in demand, and simultaneously deprived, ignored, and victimized. Stress makes them feel interesting and complex instead of boring and simple, and carries an assumption of sensitivity not unlike the Old World assumption that aristocrats were high-strung. In short, stress has become a status symbol.”

I’ve surely bought into this as much as the next person, and it shows in all the little ways I remind myself every day about how stressed I am. I claim not to enjoy the feeling, but, at the same time, I do so much to cultivate it, to keep it going. It’s a destructive relationship, and one I aim to end. Stress is inevitable, true. My crazy addiction to it is not.

Here’s a simple thing: tonight, I came in from a busy twelve-hour shift tired and ready to shift gears. But what was my first thought upon entering my home? It wasn’t Boy, I’m glad to be here! I didn’t walk through the door with a smile on my face, anticipating relaxation ahead. No, I hadn’t even put my bike away when this lousy hamster wheel started turning in my head: God, I’m glad that’s over. But I have to do it again tomorrow. Ugh. And tonight I have to put on laundry and find something for dinner and sew that button back on my shirt and feed the animals and and and and… Exasperation, whinging, and a to-do list are how I welcome myself home.

Two-faced stress addict, right here. How ridiculous is that?

But they say the first step is recognizing the problem, and so, I put down my bag, and acknowledged the addled list-maker inside of me. She has a pathological need to always be productive, to forever be ticking items off her busy little lists. Tonight’s list didn’t lose any of its importance, but it did lose its false urgency. It got cut back down to size, with a simple (not to imply easy, mind you!) effort of will, a purposeful change of focus. The list got done, but not until I’d given myself a smile, kissed the pooches, stretched my legs, and said, “Boy, I’m glad to be here.” And meant it.

I’m gonna do this a thousand more times, and see where it gets me. I have a feeling the view will be much better from there.