Worrying cannot change the past, but it can ruin the future

I am a worriwort. I have been for at least 20 years now. Even in videos of me as a toddler, I frequently looked concerned and seemed to always be analyzing the world around me. In second grade I developed this random worrisome thought about bathrooms, particularly not being able to get to one in time. My anxiety about the issue eventually escalated to the point where I had an ultrasound on my bladder and kidneys to determine if there really was a physical reason as to why I needed to go pee every 15 minutes or if I it was my anxiety causing it. It was the anxiety. I was seven years old and had anxiety. Where does that even come from in a seven year old?!

And knowing that it was the anxiety didn't alleviate the problem, it just identified it. At school I was given a special bathroom pass to take whenever I needed by signing my name on the board to let the teacher know I had gone out. I was fine at home, because I knew there was always a bathroom close, but in class I would leave upwards of 5 times a day to go to the bathroom (mind you, I always made sure to go before school, at recess, and lunch too). It's definitely a good thing that I was an excellent student growing up (until like, 10th grade when I failed geometry but I blame that on a combination of a terrible teacher and my bull-headedness, not because I was dumb), otherwise I feel like I would have failed second grade due to the amount of time I was in the bathroom and not in class. 

My anxiety about needing to pee all the time slowly dwindled over the school year, and by third grade I ended up with the most wonderful teacher who created such a welcome, safe, happy learning environment that I never wanted to miss class. My anxiety was alleviated and I thrived in school that year. Some of my happiest elementary school moments are from Mrs. Denney's class :)

Just as the anxiety over going pee all the time appeared out of no where, I was blindsided by another bathroom related anxiety in high school. All of a sudden I became desperately fearful of throwing up in class. I had never before thrown up in class, or even at school, but with the onset of 10th grade came the intense fear of throwing up. It affected so many of the choices I made on a daily basis: I would walk to classes with routes that passed bathrooms, if I was allowed to choose my seat in class it was always in the row closest to the door to serve as a fast and non-disruptive emergency exit location, I would ask to go to the bathroom as frequently as possible without getting in trouble for excessive bathroom usage.

My thoughts in class became consumed with the paralyzing fear of throwing up in front of everyone. I would sit at my desk, bouncing my legs up and down on the balls of my feet to try to alleviate some of the anxiety while I tried to analyze any and all feelings (real or imagined) I was feeling in my digestive system. I hardly paid attention to anything that my teachers said and usually relied on reading the board to know what was going on in class since my teachers' voices were always drowned out by my internal voice telling me that throw up was most likely imminent. 

There is something about pep rallies that, unbeknownst (<---- my computer is telling me this isn't a word, but I like it so therefore, I declare it is a word and it will be so) to me at the time, would become a major source of stress for me in my little world where I tried to stay throw up free. There was something about sitting there in that large gym, with not only the people from my class, or my grade, but the ENTIRE school that could potentially see me throw up that sent my body into fight or flight mode. 

I chose flight by convincing one of my favorite teachers to let me stay in his classroom during pep rallies. As everyone else was walking toward the gym, I slyly wandered the opposite direction to his classroom, which wasn't always easy because all the campus security guards and teachers were herding us toward the gym like cattle. I thanked him for his empty classroom hospitality by correcting papers whilst I sat in there alone (this is probably the time when I decided I'd like to have a classroom of my own some day because correcting papers makes me unbelievably happy, as do classrooms in general :P). Thankfully by my senior year they made pep rallies optional, so I no longer had to go hide out in his room (we both could have gotten in some serious trouble even though we were never in there together, but it definitely wasn't school protocol). 

So the fear of throwing up at pep rallies dissipated, but the anxiety over throwing up in class remained with me throughout my high school years. And just for good measure, on graduation day, during the ceremony, I was absolutely convinced that I was going to pee my pants. And I couldn't just walk off the field where we were all sitting to go to the bathroom. I sat there, near tears the whole time as my then boyfriend, in a very annoyed and angry tone repeatedly told me, "If you need to go so bad, just leave. Just go." It was a very sad day and it was all because I was fearful of peeing my pants. 

Thankfully I can say that now, 8 years after my public school education ended, I am mostly rid of my fear of not making it to the bathroom. However, my anxiety when I am put into situations that are out of my control still remains. But I am making a conscious effort to stop. I saw a quote on a billboard at a dry cleaners near my work that said, "Worrying cannot change the past, but it can ruin the future." I'm trying really hard to remind myself of that now when I find myself stressing to the point of almost certain insanity. Boyfriend has learned that if I'm quiet, as in was consistently talking and have abruptly stopped, that it means one of two things: I have to go to the bathroom, or I'm worried. The worry he can help talk me out of. And the pee, well, with that I am definitely on my own :P

A brief re-cap of the past three and a half months

It's been exactly three and a half months since I last posted anything on here. I didn't mean to temporarily give up on this blog, and I apologize to my handful of regular readers (Dad, Twinsie, Tia Catalina) who stop by to see what's going on only to find that I've seemingly been stagnant since May. Really the reason for the cessation in blogging was due to a disruption in my usual routine. I'm very much a creature of habit and when my little world gets thrown off kilter, well then something's got to give and that something was blogging. And now, for at least the time being, my old life that I missed so dearly has returned and I once again have time to devote to writing on a regular basis. 

A brief re-cap of the past three and a half months:

May: In my last blog I was getting ready to leave for our highly anticipated Hawaiian vacation. Aside from some extremely disruptive and inexplicable stomach abnormalities that I suffered from for the first two days, it was nearly the perfect vacation. The only thing that could have made being in such a gorgeous location with a boy I'm absolutely crazy about even better was if our vacation could have been longer :) We did lots of hiking (Diamond Head, Koko Crater, Manoa Falls) and sightseeing (North Shore, Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, and...pretty much anywhere and everywhere you look because that island paradise is so dang beautiful) and got to see his family quite a bit. A well rounded vacation for sure. And the best part about it was that it was 5 hours behind Chicago time so we got up at like 5:30 every morning and were able to get an entire day's worth of activities done before noon! Haha. The only crappy part about it all was that on the way home our flight was delayed in Salt Barf City, Utah and we were stuck in that dreadful airport for 4 extra hours. Wish those extra hours could have been spent in Oahu! :P Also, Boyfriend and I have decided it's in our 5 year plan to move to Hawaii, since we both have island roots :)

June: This was the month when my routine got disrupted. School let out for the summer and I went from working my measly 15ish hours a week to 35+. I am, and seemingly always will be, absolutely terrible with time management and found it too difficult of a task to find time to blog after my long days with the girls. June had lots of fun events though. My mom and Brother came to visit for week and a half, driving all the way here from Southern California and taking the northern route in the process, hitting up states like Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota and adding them to their lengthy lists of places they've visited. Their first night here I took them both out for their first L ride. Brother got a little bit of motion sickness, which is completely understandable, but she enjoyed how easy and nice the public transportation is here and said she wished she had access to something like that on a regular basis. I told her I wish she could come live in my 2nd floor apartment, go to art school here, and be near me :) My mom loved looking at all the different architecture that Chicago has to offer. I was actually able to get quite a bit of time off work, only having to leave them alone for 1 day, so we were able to get lots of sightseeing in at places like the Sears Tower, Chicago Botanic Gardens, Grant Park/Buckingham Fountain/Crown Fountain/The Bean. We even drove up to Winnetka and saw where they filmed Home Alone, a childhood staple in our house. Their time here went by rather quickly and I cried a lot on the morning they left. It's really hard being 2,000 miles away from your loved ones sometimes. June was also when we were able to get all our vegetable seedlings in the ground and get our garden started :) June was also when I saw fireflies for the first time :) :)

July: July was hot. Like, dangerously high heat index hot. Not everyday, but more days than not it was sticky and uncomfortable and just downright gross. This made it very difficult to go running on a regular basis and I pretty much stopped working out all together. Other than that, I really can't remember a single good thing that happened in July. I'm sure it wasn't all terrible, just nothing memorable. I was sad that I wasn't able to celebrate two of my besties' birthdays with them. Next year, when I'm rich :)

August: And now here we are. Nearly the end of the month already. The girls have gone back to school and this week has been my first week of 3:00 starting times again, which I so missed. I had two job interviews last week, one for the Chicago Public Schools' sub pool and one for a paraprofessional position in a district near where I work. I was unofficially told by the interviewer at CPS (so weird to me that it's called CPS. What I refer to as CPS is known as DCFS here) that I'd been accepted into the pool, but I've yet to get the follow up email confirming that. He did say it'd be 1-2 weeks though, and right now it's been about 10 days since my interview so I'm seemingly still in good shape. I actually got offered a position with the other school district, but I turned it down as it was not the position I had originally applied for. It was a really hard decision to turn down a full time job in a district, because I know what kind of doors that could potentially open for me, but in the end I had to go with my gut and my gut told me to hold out for what I really want. 

A few other little miscellaneous updates:

• All our poison dart frogs have died. Starting in June we lost one every month, spaced about 4 weeks apart. We have no idea what caused their deaths and I feel horribly guilty that I couldn't help them.
• Our garden is growing quite well. We've had numerous zucchini, tons of cherry tomatoes and snow peas. We're almost ready to harvest some broccoli, more eggplant, bell peppers, to name a few. We just found two pumpkins growing on the 25 foot vines that have taken over our backyard while sneaking through a slat in the fence to creep into the neighbor's yard too. 
• Our house is looking better and better. There are still a lot of cosmetic changes that need to happen, but those can wait. Though lately we've been having some electrical issues, like the night where the hall light wouldn't turn on without the bathroom light being turned on as well. But the bathroom light being on caused the kitchen light to turn off. Seriously, what the crap, old house?
• My car pooped its pants on the way home from work one night, leaving me stranded in a grocery store parking lot for nearly 3 hours while I reactivated my Triple A and then waited not so patiently for a tow truck. Turned out my coolant reservoir tank cracked open, but thanks to the super friendly and fast auto repair shop that is literally a half mile from our house, it was up and running the next day :)
• I'm now able to run three miles straight and I'm getting super close to averaging 10 minute miles. It's hard not to compare myself to Boyfriend, who has been running for a few years now and has some of the longest legs I've ever seen. But I think I'm finally accepting that he and I are two different people and I shouldn't think negatively about my progress just because I don't perform at the same level he does. We're hopefully gonna run a corn maze 5k in October. I know I'll be able to complete that no problem.
• I've decided that I need to make myself as marketable as possible so for the 2011-2012 school year, I will be taking the necessary steps to clear my Illinois Provisional Credential to obtain the next level, Initial. I'm also going to hopefully start an endorsement program which will give me extra certification in a specific area (I'm thinking ESL would be the most beneficial). And I'm going to try to take as many Professional Development courses/seminars/workshops/conferences as I can get my hands on/afford. It's my goal to have my own classroom for the 2012-2013 school year and I will bust my butt trying to make that dream a reality :)

Thanks for sticking around to read this ridiculously long post. Sorry it wasn't full of humorous quips or fancy language, but I wanted to just get a blog posted to get myself back into the routine. More to come in the very near future :)