My Edge

Today felt like the longest day ever. Until tomorrow, which will feel like an even longer day. My nasty little sinus infection is trying to move into my lungs and become a nasty little bronchitis episode. I am resisting, but just barely. The children are with my mom tonight, because I've got to get up at o'dark thirty and drive at least two hours for a training session that probably isn't going to train me in shit, but that's okay. Gotta do it. I dragged my ass in to the nail salon tonight to get my nails done, and the woman who didn't do my nails right two weeks ago was in there glaring at me because I got a snappish with her the last time. So we just glared at each other and then she said something I didn't understand, because that's what happens in these Asian nail salons. Whatever. Bitch. Who won't get a good tip from me anymore.

Tomorrow is my birthday. This is kind of odd for me, because this will be the first birthday I've had in at least 12 years that I haven't been attached to someone. I'm not quite sure what to make of a birthday that's not full of contrived shit that I always felt like was designed to make me feel guilty about something. I used to always take my birthdays off from work, and would just kind of designate the day as my own personal mental health day, and I would lay around and watch TV and eat Chex Mix and drink Coke and just be by myself. If you're an only child, being by yourself isn't a hard thing to do. But then I got married, and The Ex decided that he would also take that day off to spend the whole day with me. Now, maybe this was me being a selfish bitch, but I didn't want to share my birthday. And I didn't want him hovering about all day asking if I wanted to do this or do that. No, motherfucker. I already told you I want to just lay on the sofa and do nothing. By myself. All day. So this went on for about three or four years, and then he stopped taking the day off, but then he pouted about it because I didn't want to share my birthday with him. Hello, it's my birthday! Not yours. This isn't about you. Geez. So that worked for about two years, and then I said, fuck it. I stopped taking the day off. It wasn't worth the drama. But I always wondered if I really was being selfish. I guess that's all a non-issue now. I won't be taking tomorrow off, because of what I've got going on, but rest assured, while I'm in my training thing, my brain will be laying on my sofa watching some TV.

I was thinking about the whole legal status of divorce and separation today. I've got about four more months until the judge signs off on this thing and makes it legit. I don't even know why there's a separation period, other than this is one of those gray legal areas that's kind of a try-it-out thing. I guess like an engagement. So I'm engaged to be divorced. Depending on when the judge signs off, I could be legal on January 25th. I guess the separation is kind of like that time period that you have to spend where you determine, oh, wait, I really don't hate you and we can fix this with some dirty make up sex, or... oh, wait, I hate you even more than I thought I did a year ago and if I ever have to see you naked again I'll kill myself. I fall into that second category, but I'm pretty sure The Ex falls into that first category, what with his behavior and then telling me that I looked hot at the football game on Saturday night, which made me want to pierce my eardrums with an ice pick. Seriously. He told me that. I just turned and walked away without a word in reply. I mean, what do you say to something like that? Because whatever I said was not going to be what he heard.

The other thing that feels different this year, apart from the divorce, or maybe because of it, is that I feel like I'm on the cusp of something. I feel like it might be something good, but then I have these moments of sheer anxiety, the kind of anxiety that wakes me up from a dead sleep, and I think, oh my god, I could lose all of this in a minute. The kind of anxiety that drives me out of bed and wandering around the house, wondering how long it will be before everything just totally falls apart. The kind of anxiety that means I only get about three or four hours of sleep, and then just kind of sleepwalk my way through the next day, and repeat again about two nights later. Of course, this could be due to all of the changes I've been through in the past eight months, and the fact that I'm the person responsible for everything now. There is no one else to fall back on. If I fail, I fail big. I'll fail like I lose my house, my children have to live with their father because I'll be living in a homeless shelter or something, I'll fail like I have to file for bankruptcy, I'll fail like I've never failed before. I'll fail in the most epic and grandest sense of the word. That's a lot to think about at 3:59 in the morning when I should be sleeping. What's even worse is I used to have this kind of anxiety about losing one of my parents until it happened. So now I'm left feeling like I'm going to have this anxiety until I fail big, but even thinking that makes it worse, like I'm going to jinx myself or something.

I'm pretty sure I could manipulate a prescription for Xanax out of someone for all of this anxiety and fear of failure, but I can't. Because I wouldn't have any anxiety then, and I have survived off of caffeine, nicotine and anxiety since I was about 15, to the point that I had stomach ulcers by the time I was 18, and lived with that pain for about four years until they went away. Every now and then, I have one of those little flair-ups, the kind that makes me remember the pain of stomach ulcers, and I'm like, holy shit, this is uncomfortable. But I think I've just internalized it all in my brain, so now I just think constantly about all the what-if's and all the ways I can fail. And this is my edge in life. I'm scared that if I end up on Xanax or whatever else, then there goes the essence of Steph. There goes my edge in life, because I'll suddenly stop caring about anything. I'll just float through life, a big giant blob of nothingness with no brain, no worries, no thoughts on anything other than whatever people on that stuff think about, which I assume is flowers and rainbows and unicorns. I can't lose my edge. I just can't, because I can't be that person focused on flowers and rainbows and unicorns. I won't be able to keep my children organized, I won't be able to keep myself organized, I won't have a clean house, I won't pay the bills on time, I won't be able to do my job right because I need my edge at work. Everything I do at work depends on my edge and this overwhelming drive to do what I do, and do what I do really well. I can't just be a big blob of nothingness because that's not who I am.

The worst thing about this is that there's no middle ground here for me, no gray trial area of let's see if this works or doesn't work. It's either all or nothing. It's either me doing what I need to do each and every day not to fail myself, not to fail my children, not to fail my family, my employer, and everyone who meets me, or it's me being a big blob of nothingness.

Happy Birthday. And don't fail. Maybe this is where I start drinking for the night.