Shaky on Every Front

My anxiety is taking over.

I have an appointment with a neurologist on December 1st. As this date approaches, the fear I have about it gets a stronger foothold. I realize that fear in the face of something that needs investigation is pretty counter-productive, but I'm still afraid. For years now, I have noticed an increasing tendency for my hands to shake. Sometimes it's inhibiting to performing tasks. You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I have very weak hands. Opening jars and bottles is an ordeal.

Of greater concern to me... the shaking has gotten significant enough for people to not only notice, but comment... a lot. I've inherited it from my father. He used to shake quite a bit. But according to my mother, he would never visit a doctor to have it examined. He didn't like doctors. He didn't like hospitals. No small irony that he died in one. But at any rate, if he did have some neurological disorder that he could genetically pass on to his son, I'm soon to find out. And I'm quite thoroughly terrified.

It could be nothing. It could be emotional stress. It could be that I need to set aside 10 minutes per day to scream and cry like a crazy person. As emotional as I am, I feel repressed. I feel like a person who's screaming and crying on the inside. Have you ever seen that episode of Six Feet Under where David has a waking dream of screaming during a funeral? I'm reminded of that.

Insecure thoughts are circling and rattling my cage. I'm thinking of how my parents had me late in life. I'm thinking of the legacy of poor health in each of their families. All of my uncles and aunts on my father's side, are all gone. 10 of them. All dead. My father was the youngest, and he's been gone for almost 19 years. The siblings on my mother's side including my mother are all still alive, and I figure if I can avoid the plague of obesity they all suffer from, I can dodge a few of the bullets they've all taken.

I have no delusions of living forever. And I don't think I'm afraid to die per say. I just don't want to be sick. I don't want to suffer and degenerate. Given the fact that I'm (as I've pointed out ad nauseum) alone in life, the prospect of being unable to care for myself is frightening. But I suppose no-more-so than the thought of sentencing a loved one to care for me.

Couple this (perhaps irrational) concern with the take-over at work... the approach of Christmas... my collapsing faith in any hope of a friendship/relationship/anything with Scooter... my overall stress of social interaction... and the pressure of merely existing....
And I think I've got a pretty good recipe for an all-systems-failure.

Taking a serious look at my health, and the potential to be really unwell, sheds a light on the fact that nothing really matters, but I don't know that I "live" that knowledge... so maybe a crisis, whether real or manufactured could be just what I need.

Shut it down. Shut it all down. Everything that's not key to my existence. The friends and family who don't bother. The job that, if lost, could force me into action I've never had the courage to take. Shut down the worry. Shut down the mother fucking future I cannot see and cannot change and could not affect otherwise. Shut it down. I don't want to think about it.

I want to be a tree. I want to long for nothing more than the sun hitting the greenery and the water that nourishes the roots. Fuck health problems. Fuck worry. Fuck being loved. Fuck being known. Fuck ever wanting to please another human being on this doomed ball of dirt. Fuck it all, for tomorrow I could be forced down by winds. Struck down by lightning. Cut down by some unwitting lumberjack. Today. This moment I still stand.

I stand and spout empty words about bravery and apathy I don't possess.

And I go that much more crazy.

*sigh*

I missed my appointment with Dr Truth today. Totally forgot about it. You'd think my mind would be on therapy given how stricken I feel. I'm going to be penalized 120-dollars for missing the appointment. Which makes me think I should stop making appointments in the event that I'm going to fuck-up and miss them. I can't afford to miss them. And it's not that I have issue with the concept. Dr Truth's time is valuable. I have to make appointments well in advance because his calendar is full. When someone just doesn't show up, it's a waste of his time. That doesn't alter the fact that I can't afford a 120-dollar fuck up. Yet, my co dependence asserts itself in the pattern of thought, that without him, I will have absolutely no one to listen to me fall apart. And my ego can't handle falling apart all by myself now, can it?

Last night I went to visit my soon-to-be-nephew in the hospital. He was in Toronto (or Markham rather) to have a hernia operated on. I didn't really want to go. It was a case of feeling it wouldn't matter to him whether I did or not anyway. I don't know him very well, and thought it might even seem weird that I would go and visit him, but... he was all alone with no family up here, in a boring hospital in the middle of nowhere. So I went. He's a nice kid. I like him a lot. Mind you, I took the opportunity to deliver the bad news that I can't afford to go to their destination wedding in January.
It took me an hour and a half to get there, and even longer to get home because I don't know the transit system up there very well, and missed a bus on the way back. It turned-out to be a blessing. I had to wait an hour, so I took refuge in a Shopper's Drug Mart and bought things I've been meaning to buy, but for whatever reason, haven't. I picked up the November issue of Details magazine with Chris Pine on the cover... band aids, tissues, peroxide, nail clippers (to replace the ones I sucked up the vacuum cleaner by accident) and probably most importantly... a bottle of Valerian Root. I wish I had some right now as a matter of fact. I've used it before for anxiety. There's really no reason why I should ever not be taking it. It brings on a wonderful wave of calm. Which makes up for it's horrible smell. (wet dog in a bottle anyone?)

I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for my problems that pale in comparison to the hardship that faces so many other people. I am grateful to be alive. To love and learn, and feel disenchanted with the whole ordeal. I am grateful to be creative enough to even wish to be a tree. And though it causes me self-afflicted misery... I am grateful to be self-aware. It simply must be better than ignorance and oblivion. Ok gratitude... stay with me. Balance me, ground me, heal me. I need your help so badly.

Rattling chains, fine-tuning the probe... unfurling the wings... the ghost-alien-angel will dwell among the humans another day.

Today's song of the day, is by Amy Grant. I will forever love this woman. I don't believe as she does, but if ever a true christian existed, I think it's her. So I'm not waiting for Jesus, but these lyrics speak to me anyhow. It's a great song.

Amy Grant - The Water

Quick sand
My heart is sinkin'
I try to run
But I can't stop thinkin'
I'm climbin' walls
I'm on the ceilin'
It's gonna take a miracle to heal me

I'm starin' down
Into the quarry
I see a stone
For every sorry
I'm on the edge
I'm goin' under
And after I die
I'm gonna rise from the water (oooh)

I wanna blast off
Let gravity disappear
I'm tired of fallin', fallin', fallin' from the weight of fear
Come and lift me up into the clean and clear
I'm waitin' on you, Jesus, in the water here
So come and wash me clean

The sky is red, there's
Blood on my hands
I can't deny
I'm guilty where I stand
The verdict's in
I hear them shoutin'
Send me a river to drown this mountain (oooh)

I wanna blast off
Let gravity disappear
I'm tired of fallin', fallin', fallin' from the weight of fear
Come and lift me up into the clean and clear
I'm waitin' on you, Jesus, in the water here
So come and wash me clean

Wash me clean

(Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me, Heaven wash me)