when anxiety attacks
it all begins tomorrow.
i'm sitting here at a table in my classroom at school, making name cards for my students. they'll be here in nine hours, ready, if not willing, to start the new year.
and i'm trying to figure out what i'm going to do with these boxes, or where i'm going to find five sets of markers by 7 am. there are different kinds of ready. part of me is ready; the part that says, 'relax, you don't need markers.'
the summer is ending tonight. it'll be hot for another four months, and it's over 90 in my apartment right now, but the long days of working spasmodically and swimming occasionally are done. it's been a very strange summer. a new city, but many trips to the old ones. a new job, one that's consumed my life for the past four months without my having ever collected a paycheck. a number of freakish accidents, which have left me shaken but basically unhurt. i'm glad that this transitory period is ended- maybe that was the point. lots of shaking, no hurt.
i have paul simon's 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' running through my head right now, which brings back an unexpected memory from earlier in the summer. in the hour after the fire, we sat at the neighbor's house drinking orange juice-flavored vodka and listening, waiting for the shock to go away; the radio was playing, tuned to a public access station, and the song that was played was 'homeless', off of the same album. homeless, we are homeless, the moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake. at the time, having just survived a house fire, i thought that was strange and oddly significant; thinking about it now, i realize that i'd forgotten it for months.
i'm finding as i get older that there are plenty of things which are significant that i'll forget for a few months at a time. and you know, that's ok. i'm going to forget some troubles for a while and begin something new tomorrow, and i'm scared as hell and excited.
lots of shaking, no hurt.
i'm sitting here at a table in my classroom at school, making name cards for my students. they'll be here in nine hours, ready, if not willing, to start the new year.
and i'm trying to figure out what i'm going to do with these boxes, or where i'm going to find five sets of markers by 7 am. there are different kinds of ready. part of me is ready; the part that says, 'relax, you don't need markers.'
the summer is ending tonight. it'll be hot for another four months, and it's over 90 in my apartment right now, but the long days of working spasmodically and swimming occasionally are done. it's been a very strange summer. a new city, but many trips to the old ones. a new job, one that's consumed my life for the past four months without my having ever collected a paycheck. a number of freakish accidents, which have left me shaken but basically unhurt. i'm glad that this transitory period is ended- maybe that was the point. lots of shaking, no hurt.
i have paul simon's 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' running through my head right now, which brings back an unexpected memory from earlier in the summer. in the hour after the fire, we sat at the neighbor's house drinking orange juice-flavored vodka and listening, waiting for the shock to go away; the radio was playing, tuned to a public access station, and the song that was played was 'homeless', off of the same album. homeless, we are homeless, the moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake. at the time, having just survived a house fire, i thought that was strange and oddly significant; thinking about it now, i realize that i'd forgotten it for months.
i'm finding as i get older that there are plenty of things which are significant that i'll forget for a few months at a time. and you know, that's ok. i'm going to forget some troubles for a while and begin something new tomorrow, and i'm scared as hell and excited.
lots of shaking, no hurt.