Anxiety

Okay, so, hi, it’s me.

I’m feeling really anxious right now. I know that “anxiety” is a massive buzz word but there is genuinely no other way to describe how I am feeling.

In England Lockdown seems to be easing. The problem I have with this is that I genuinely prefer the solitude and peace of lockdown to how life was before. I love working remotely from my little make-shift office in the box room of our flat in North london. I havent set foot on the underground for over eight months and it is a truly liberating experience. It is also priveledged, and I know that. Talk about third world problems. The point is I feel really anxious and depressed at the idea of going back to getting shuttled like cattle from my flat to work and back again. Listening to a barage of meaningless office small talk that I don’t care about in the slightest and picking up coughs and colds in the mere act of stepping outside my front door.

Global pandemic aside, some people are just as gross as they have always been and they are going to be moving among the rest of us when the time comes. Just remember that.

During the pandemic Mr Maybe and I have been in a little bubble of calm and have become so much closer than ever before as a couple.

Before we didnt really have a chance – which sounds really weird, but its true.

We had certain people breezing in and out of our life leaving nothing but devistation in their wake. A smog of tension would hang in the air around them like Aramis cologne, a smog that would only clear with their departure. BUT… for the past two years our little home has been a haven from all of that. And the fact we have thrived so greatly without those individuals makes it all the more obvious just how toxic they were and makes me all the more anxious that once lockdown is over, they will be making a bee-line for us to see what havoc they can wreak.

As Mr Maybe and I have been left to our own devices without interference – it has been the best two years of our entire relationship. I finally got a job, we painted our rented flat and put stuff into storage to make the place more spacious. We vowed to save for our own home, gave up drinking for a month, adopted some gerbils, walked around naked, had sex with wild abandon, had the luxury to stretch out a bit, have cooked new and exciting meals, started new hobbies, got to know each other all over again – and I have felt myself visibly unclenching. It’s genuinely so hard to live on the defensive for so long simply because you have had to.

So I’m scared that things will go back to the way they were.

It’s clear that as things have been so blissful for us, noses have been put out of joint and I am slightly fearful of the repercussions. Which is insane. I’m thirty six, I have paid my dues, even dated a douchebag or two – now I get to be happy, right?

To be honest, I’m not sure.

Mr Maybe and I plan to move to Tunbridge wells in the next couple of months in a step by step plan to eventually move to a village in the countryside. I’m excited to move to Tunbridge, but also thrilled that it will hopefully also put us in a little out-of-the-way spot that will hold a lot less interest. Maybe melting into the background of a town rather than being in a buzzing metropolis will keep sauron’s eye from falling upon us with interest?

That’s the hope anyway.

It sounds like going into hiding – and actually… yes it is. Only in plain sight.

For the moment I’m just wrestling with the looming feeling of dread in my stomach that doesn’t seem to be going away. Finding myself in moments of solitude wistfully wandering from room to room, sighing. Trying to capture every single moment of calm and silence I can.

In the meantime there is always CBD oil to cope with the jitters.

And vodka. Lets not forget the vodka.

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