We forget to count the days

I don't want to brag, but I have incredibly developed pathways in my sympathetic nervous system. I'm no neuroscientist, but after my diagnosis of OCD a couple of years ago I started to do a little research. That I have anxiety was always glaringly apparent. Interestingly, I also have high cholesterol despite a healthy weight, regular-ish exercise, and a vegetarian diet. I attributed the high cholesterol in part to genetics; my uncle and father, both avid runners and incredibly fit, suffer from high cholesterol. But now I'm curious about the link between anxiety, OCD and cholesterol. Because if autonomic cardiac integrity is affected by OCD, perhaps there is a connection. Something to consider.

I attempted some yoga today in an effort to calm my anxiety. I enjoy yoga but find Shavasana a waste of time. This checks out given my general disposition. The past year and a half, being at home and not in the workforce, has birthed a paradigm shift in my mental health and outlook on life. It is astonishingly uncomfortable at times. I still have a calendar where I write down what I accomplished for the day (laundry, trash, kids' therapy, etc.). My worth has always been defined, both internally and externally, by my productivity. It was historically important to attempt the most difficult, most prestigious, most grueling tasks. Anything else was a waste of time. I make jokes about my Puritan and Yankee ancestry, but my inability to easily relax is obvious. I cannot even shimmy; this is one of my goals for my 40th year: relax enough to learn how to shimmy.

After the video got to the Shavasana stage, I turned off the tv. I was contemplating whether or not to shower before picking up my kids from school when my friend called. We talked for 10 minutes at the most, but I felt calmer and more centered after our conversation than I did after 30 minutes of yoga. How interesting. Perhaps the difference is my friend sees me for myself, and reflects it back to me. My friend does not judge my worth based on my productivity. There are no expectations or obligations in our friendship. I am replenished after our time together.

My parents own one of those incredibly obnoxious signs that says, "When you're at the beach, you forget to count the days." I hate relentless positivity. I am generally a positive person, but I am wary of platitudes that don't allow for a full range of emotion. What makes me forget the patriarchal expectations of the calendar, the clock, and the bank are my conversations with friends, my time in the garden looking at insects, and reading at home with my family. Being outside in the mountains, too. I worked one summer in the mountains as a college student. The mountains are a sacred place to me. I feel deeply at peace there and have happy memories of hiking with my father. That summer, when I was around 21, I would put in the hours at my desk job and then, at quitting time, bolt out the door to hike. Often I hiked alone, sometimes with friends. The physical and spiritual connection to Earth and my body were real. I experienced true peace hiking, sketching trillium, and watching a baby moose struggle to climb the bank to reach its mother.

I want to return someday to my hiking routine. At the moment, it is a 2 hour drive from home, and I still feel as though I must be on-call in case my son needs me. Again, the patience. But. I have been forgetting to count the days in a literal sense, which gives me hope. Ever since the fall of 2021, I have been marking the calendar for the days when C is regulated and goes to school. I have forgotten to do that the last couple of weeks, which seems profound. I can go into Target and not panic at the loss of cell service. That has not happened in almost two years. The only time I am comfortable being away from my phone is when my entire family is under one roof. This is a trauma response. Despite my innate anxiety, I am not a helicopter parent. Or I wasn't until recently. Having neurodiverse children changes things.

Forgetting to count or mark the days C attends school reminds me of when I stopped counting calories. I have been in recovery from an eating disorder for nearly 16 years. My weight, barring pregnancy, has stayed the same within a 5- or 10-pound range according to the doctor's scale. I don't own a scale and I don't count calories. I exercise gently and eat what I want. When I was in law school, I consulted a dietician for my eating disorder. I told her how stressful it was to weigh myself and try to get within a certain caloric intake. Her comment: Well, what if you don't weigh yourself or count calories? This small statement was more profound than learning in Torts class that there is no legal duty to help save a drowning man (WTF?! Yet another sign I was studying the wrong profession). There have been a few self-care statements uttered by important people in my life that I have never forgotten. "Whatever you do, love yourself for doing it" (a college friend); "Your emotions are ok" (a counselor); and, "What if you don't weigh yourself?" Mind blown.

You can't trust the process until you trust yourself. Trusting myself was predicated on (1) receiving appropriate medication; (2) participating in counseling; (3) consulting a professional. I could not trust that C would be ok until I knew, through empirical evidence (again, medication, professional help, and counseling), that he was.