anxiety in pictures

I missed over a week of writing, because my anxiety had other ideas. Don't ask me what I'm anxious about. I don't have an answer; and yet I have a million. Anxiety doesn't want me to make up my mind, or form an answer with confidence. Anxiety has its own ideas. Far too many to keep up with, and so many places to put them.

When I get anxious, I make a habit of drawing it out in front of me. It comes out in the form of a monkey. My feelings toward monkeys are similar to how most people react toward spiders. I really don't want one in my house, near, or touching me. (To be honest, I personally don't mind spiders.)

Anxiety likes to create a presence. It wants you to feel like someone is waiting for you. It could be one person, or it could be the entire universe. Likely, it's the universe. Imagine the heartache when you let them all down. It's almost as bad as Alderaan.

Anxiety doesn't make decisions, yet it makes them all at once. Just as it wants to fixate on what is already behind, it wants to anticipate everything that lies ahead. It will pick, poke, and scratch at all of the things it can to distract itself from moving forward. Anxiety doesn't like forward. 

And yet, anxiety is in such a hurry to get there. It will run in every direction, in hopes it will get there safely, and on time. Not knowing where "there" even is, it is on a mission to find it. It anticipates so much at once, it takes effort to slow it down even for a moment. Anxiety doesn't like to rest. 

One thing you should know about anxiety is that it isn't a fan of the moment. There's not so much to see or do, when you look at what is presently in front of you. Nowhere to run. Not back, not forth, not forward, or behind. It's why meditation helps when anxiety is high. Meditation is a practice of being in the moment. You breathe and become present with now. Anxiety doesn't like that, and that's totally fine. No one asked for its opinion.

Even when things are going good, anxiety will want to come in and sort out what doesn't need sorting. Truth is, change of any kind (good or bad) takes time to adjust to, and you just need to be fair. It doesn't have to happen in a certain way, at a certain time, all at once, in the air, in the sky, in a parade, or in the grocery store; no matter how hard you try to chase it, push it, pull it, understand it, accept it, dismiss it, to see it for yourself. STOP. Breathe. Be fair. All that you can control is this very moment. And when you realize that.... 

No monkey.