Wednesday, January 30, 2008

High Anxiety

I've always been a worrier. I've also had a pretty healthy dose of anxiety. I was really relieved when the Santa Claus myth was confirmed by my parents, since it meant I didn't have to spend another Christmas Eve throwing up after getting all worked up wondering what Santa was going to bring me. That whole "he knows if you've been bad or good" business wasn't helping matters any, either. I guess I'd been good, but had I really been good enough to trick the jolly old man for another year?
So yeah, anxiety is nothing new, but lately I've been nebbishing around like Woody Allen in between therapist visits. It didn't help that we went to a wedding where I didn't know anyone at all a couple weeks ago (my wife knew the bride's mom or something) and with no bar, I didn't have any antidepressant juice to help me out.
Then we had this training thing at work which was a little too much talking about your feelings and goals and stuff for my tastes. As we went around the room, I had a flashback to middle school as I counted down in terror as the next person spoke, realizing I had to come up with something smart, quick, but when my turn came I blurted out whatever popped in my head, making me seem like a smartass, when I wasn't trying to be at all, and why can't we just have training where someone talks and we sit and take notes and draw pictures and then we take a test or something and get to go home early? I mean, shit, we're a bunch of clerks and librarians, none of us want to speak in front of people. If we did, we would have been actors or newscasters or politicians. What's with all the getting in groups and talking about yourself stuff? Can I blame this on the Baby Boomers?
Well, at least I have a three day weekend starting tomorrow and I'm seeing George Romero talk about "Night of the Living Dead" while I eat nachos and drink beer Saturday night, and I've got some ebay/amazon treats coming so I should be alright. Just as long as I don't have to talk about my feelings for a while.

1 comment:

Keith said...

I really disapprove of "where do you see yourself in five years" get togethers, because my answer is invariably "the hell out of this shithole" or "sitting in your place, being the boss, you incompetent jackass."

When I worked at first Union, we used to have those "feelings" pow wows, where we'd all have to wear team First Union shirts and talk about our dreams as we sat around in a hotel conference room drinking Diet Pepsi. I'm not shy about public speaking, and unfortunately at times, neither am I shy about expressing my opinions as to how idiotic team building retreats can be. How come we had to sit in a conference room in a hotel just a couple miles from where we all work, talking about feelings, and other companies get to do stuff like to to Hawaii, drink free booze, and track and kill hobos?