Next Stop: Loony Bin

My anxiety has risen to new heights.

Background Info: This weekend we were driving around looking at houses for sale as a way to pass the time. When we came across a development of homes ranging from 395K-450K we decided to play "Let's Pretend" where Don was an engineer, and I think I was a neurosurgeon. We mosey into the model home --which can I just say, was probably the most beautiful house I've ever set foot in-- and started talking to the guy. He asked us if the price range was about what we were looking for, and Don, cool as a cucumber, says, "Well, it's a little high," haha- a little! Anyhow, we look around a few of the houses (all of them with names from 1990s sitcoms, like, The Banks, The Tanner...) and secretly plan to stop at the nearest gas station to buy some lottery tickets. Anyway... one feature that caught my eye was the staircase and upper landing area. Fancy railing, big windows and so forth. Very nice.

Fast forward to about 1 am: I'm lying awake in bed thinking about how great it would be to live in The Winslow, when I realize that if we lived there, Tony would probably climb over the armchair I'd have in the reading nook at the top of the stairs, lean over the railing, and he'd lose his balance and plummet headfirst onto the hardwood floors below. So then I start thinking about how dangerous staircases can be, and I come to the conclusion that not only will we never live in a house with more than one story, but also that Tony will never even step foot in any place that does.

Crazy, much?

Xanax, Anyone?

I am a very anxious person. All my life I've had what I thought were normal, somewhat rational fears, i.e. spiders (they are not more scared of me than I am of them!), burglars, monsters in the closet, etc. Now that I'm a grown up, you'd think I'd have a handle on these things, and that they wouldn't really bother me. But, alas, that is not the case. My trepidation has only increased over the years, to the point of near-medicatable* levels (And no, it's not just because I'm a mother now, though that hasn't helped things).

One situation that I frequently obsess over is what I would do if something happened while I was driving over a bridge, sending me plummeting off the edge into the watery abyss below. What if: the bridge collapses/ I collide with another car/ my car suddenly loses functionality and I can't turn the wheel/ a tire pops/ I sneeze and cause my arms to jerk suddenly to the side... A lot can go wrong when you're 200 feet up, with nothing but a two-foot tall cement barrier separating you from the plunge of nearly-certain death! So, to my friends on the other side of the Willamette, if I don't see you for long periods of time, don't worry, it's not you, it's me. Me, and my paranoid, angst-ridden mind.



*not a real word, but you catch my drift, right?