Anxy

I recently had cause to call an old acquaintance about something. It was nice to reconnect, but it was immediately obvious that there was a differential in the way we spoke. He was calm, self-assured, confident, and quiet. I was not.

I don’t know if it’s the stress of life at the moment - toddler parenting, fascism, eldercare, a tricky job at a particularly hectic time - or if I’m just naturally strung a different way. I’ve often been envious of people who don’t have the overhead of anxiety or grief, whose emotions aren’t ebbing and flowing under the surface to a degree that makes it hard to keep them under wraps.

Maybe it’s fine: call it an artistic temperament rather than a professional veneer. But wouldn’t it be nice to have all the ingredients a life needs to be calm?