The United States of Susan
When I woke up after being asleep for less than four hours, I thought it was because I had to pee. By the time I got to the bathroom, my heart was racing and my chest was squeezing in on me so tightly that I began to realize something else was going on. I had only gone up about 9 stairs so I was pretty sure it wasn’t from that (though, let’s be honest, it could have been) but in my early morning, just waking up fog, I couldn’t figure it out. As I sat in the dark bathroom wondering what the hell was happening, my brains started trying to help out.
I say brains plural because I feel like there are three parts of me that are all separate, yet quite intertwined. There’s Me, the all-encompassing figure who is the one you’d meet if you, well, met me. Me interacts with society, kind of like an actor on stage. And just like a performer, everything she does depends on the work of the backstage crew. That’s where the other two parts come in.
On one side is the conscious, usually logical part of me. She’s the optimistic one who tries to embrace any situation, no matter what by saying things like, “You can get through this. You’re learning from this. Find a way to be grateful for the experience.” (Yes. Seriously. Those are the thoughts that go through my head because, smoking baby dammit, I really want to be better.) Then there’s my subconscious. She is the emotional side who prefers to convey her messages not in words, but with physical manifestations like early morning heart palpitations. So, in this particular case, no matter how much the mouthy, conscious side was saying, “It’s all okay,” the silent subconscious side reminded me that it really wasn’t by inducing a raised pulse and throwing in a side of false asthma attack. The best part was that once my logical side finally caught on to what was happening, she dropped the Pollyanna outlook and went straight for doomsday: “You know what it is? Maybe your heart’s crapping out like your mom and grandma.”
I’m frankly a little bit sick of it. I’m tired of panicking. I’m tired of jumping straight into worst case scenario mode. I’m tired of always being prepared for catastrophe. Because, I’m always prepared for catastrophe. I don’t know if it’s the 15+ suicides I experienced in high school or the fact that I was always threatened with things like, “You know, that’s just gonna kill your mama.”
It reminds me of Adele Givens from Queens of Comedy who talked about how when she was a kid, her grandma would always tell her that they were living in their last days. She’d wake up in the morning worried: “Gramma, is this it? Can I ride my bike one more time?”
Except it’s not anyone else making me panic, it’s me, (and me and the other me) and it’s irrational. If only we could all pull it together at the same time, we might be able to work it out. I dunno. I’m obviously not sure how to fix it yet, but I’m sure as hell trying.
