My Anxiety Monster

I’ve heard buffalo walk toward rain clouds

instead of walking away from them so they can get through a storm faster

So,

What do you call the opposite of a buffalo?

I’ve known anxiety as long as I can remember 

I’ve known the “I’m so anxious for my big speech!” anxiety and the paralyzing, keep you in your bed “Will this ever end?” anxiety and about everything in between

What I’ve learned, though, if we’re thinking about those

aforementioned buffalo is that 

anxiety is that raincloud for me 

Except,

It’s a raincloud that gets bigger and even more ominous if I try to avoid it 

In fact, 

Sometimes my anxiety raincloud turns into a greedy monster 

Getting larger, growing an ugly, angry face the more I try to ignore it

Picture: giant green blob taking over the museum in the original Ghostbusters

And each time I cancel plans, each time I postpone that task, each time I say “I’ll do that another time”

I feed that monster

It grows

And grows

Until I see that furious blob enveloping everything in my life 

And I’m stuck

But the thing is,

I’m never actually stuck

I always have the choice, which I sometimes need to remind myself

To walk toward the rain cloud

Or, in better words,

To walk toward the giant blob

To stop feeding it

To do the things that scare me: 

The good and bad

So here I am

Many years since naming that monster “anxiety”

And I’ve spent many of those years training it, grooming it 

Walking toward the storm

I went to a college where I knew no one even though I was scared to feel lonely

I sang a solo on stage when I had horrible stage fright

I studied in France for a semesterwhen I had never traveled abroad 

I worked in an inpatient psychiatric hospital when I was once afraid of severe mental illness

And when I did those things,

I felt invincible 

I’m thankful for my anxiety

Which is something I never thought I would say

It’s been with me so many years

It’s part of me

I wouldn’t be where I am today without learning to understand it, to work through it, to have it challenge me and come out the other side stronger 

It’s made me compassionate toward others

It’s made me compassionate toward myself

When I really want to do something, it takes me that much more dedication and perseverance to decide to just do it

To walk into the storm and know that everything will be okay,

That I’ll be okay

That I might surprise myself

That I might even make myself proud

And now,

As I write this

I move across country

With my car packed

With little idea what I’m doing

And you can bet my old friend anxiety is here to remind me of all there is unknown

It’s here to challenge me again

To make me question if I can do it

To help me contemplate how much I want it

To pose the question: should I carry on or should I feed my monster?

But, that’s why they call it a journey

And it makes the end result that much more rewarding