The Path Not Chosen

Thursday morning, I had my first spa for quite a while. The snow and bitter cold, followed by days and days of rain had me avoiding using it, but yesterday was so lovely and mild and there was a break from the rain, so in I went at 8:00 am. And it was good; it was very, very, good.

Another brilliant thing about yesterday was going for our afternoon romp in Rollo Park in sunshine and 13° temperatures. I felt as good as I do on a Summer day. It is so beautiful this year when it’s not -15° and snowing.

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I reached the point in the path of my life, where I had to make a choice. One: Go down this path and you live with extreme anxiety, but you can live happily ever after (with anxiety) but you cannot speak. Or two: Go down the other path to speak, but when I do, I lose motor control, especially affecting my speech and causing seizures. Plus, I will live with severe anxiety. 

I went down path #2. Duh. But I wish I. had the balls to change to path #1.

I’ve hit an emotional wall. I’m feeling like an addict. I need a fix of (safe) human contact intermittently. But I really don’t like who I become when I speak in social situations. My speech has become staggeringly bad. Plus, the effort exhausts me, and it causes me to have seizures. As soon as I try to speak, my nervous system goes haywire. 

But I’m an addict and so I go to dinners, and I talk. And when I come home, I crash. I feel absolutely shitty about talking to people with my arms flying around in the air. And I think, I’ve got to stop doing this. But I can’t stop. I’m an addict.

I like David and Ursula. I really like and trust them. It’s nice to be building a warm rapport with them. But entertaining was once a source of pride and joy for me; now it’s an enormous source of stress. Hence my decision to buy a cake to serve for dessert. This is something I never do, but I want to reduce my stress; baking is stressful.

I’m making the main—a spicy Thai style prawn sauce to serve with rice—and a Thai salad. I want to keep things simple so that I am not stressed when they are here. I hope my symptoms are minimal for their visit. I think I’ll ask Dr. Soja if I should be taking a clonazepam tablet with every social engagement. Maybe that’ll help. She prescribed the pills, but I have never used them. It’s like Atavan.

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It's Friday and I’m going to a fitness class at the community hall this morning. I have 2 friends who go, so I feel up to the challenge. I hope that I like it and want to continue. It’s been decades since I went to fitness classes.