anxiety

[raven]

Things that are causing me to be anxious at the moment, a non-exhaustive list:

1. Sleeping (ahaha, it is a hollow laughter);

2. Wedding, comma, the one this weekend (what if it all goes wrong! what if everyone hates everyone else! what if the friend-of-a-friend band don't turn up! what if I FALL ON MY FACE! what if the carefully constructed schedule all falls to pieces! my entire family are coming! it will be just another instance of my inability to do anything right! (see also 5!) oh hell);

3. Wedding, comma, the one in December, the one that is ages away (ages away! ages! John Lewis are selling Christmas stuff!);

4. Welcome to Night Vale (I haven't listened to the latest episode - what if Carlos and Cecil break up? what will I doooo? self, are you really so invested in a half-hour podcast about made-up people? yes yes yes, oh help)

5. Continued unemployment (I had three job interviews last week - it looks like I have not got any of the three jobs);

6. yuletide nominations (it looks so complicated! there has been so much on it I've missed! if I nominate anything it will all go wrong and I will be one of those people who cannot follow simple instructions!);

7. Writing. Can't do it any more. Not a word. Making a speech on Saturday that I haven't written. Hi.

Largely due to (1) and (3), I am not on Twitter or Tumblr a lot this week.

Things that are not causing me to be anxious at the moment, an exhaustive list:

1. Shim;

2. Parks and Recreation (post coming on WHY I LOVE THIS STUPID SHOW SO MUCH, spoilers it has to do with municipal land use and planning!);

3. BBC Alba (I wish I were kidding. I just watched a thoughtful news report on the status of minority languages in Europe. I understood about one word in ten. It was great.).

4. Shim.

Comments

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Tali! I believe you! I absolutely believe that that's what you'll do if I fall on my face. <3333 I ate a whole plate of rice and now I actually feel better! Also you are my favourite and I can't wait to see you.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Parks and Recreation is SO GOOD. I love Lesley Knope, she is my hero.

Keep breathing, you will be magnificent and this weekend will be fun for everyone and sod everyone else. You rock, and emphasis on the breathing!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hello! I would love to be friends, I love your stories! I am usually much, much less of a fruitcake! and so, in "Dana", I loved that bit where Cecil complains about Carlos's chewing, it's not perfect and beautiful, it's real (and obviously marriage is much on my mind atm), but then people on the internet were like "omg omg THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS OBV DOOMED" and I've been all, what if those people are reading it right and I'm reading it wrong omg omg, so in conclusion you are very reassuring.

(srsly, not usually such a fruitcake)

[greek-jester.livejournal.com]

Here's my "hair curlers" theory of weddings, taken from a rather remarkable story from a magazine.

background:

The bride worked as a wedding planner at a posh stately home turned wedding venue/hotel. She planned her perfect wedding there, with the perfect dress, the perfect menu, everything planned down to the last detail. The night before, the wedding party bedded down in their rooms, ready to get ready bright and early in the morning.

Before dawn, a small fire lead to the building being evacuated. No-one was hurt and there was no structural damage, but the wing she was staying in, including everything in her room, was smoke-damaged.

She was standing in the courtyard in her pyjamas, fluffy slippers and hair curlers. The person who was marrying them turned up and said that they could either get married now, as they were (hair curlers and all) or she could wait several months until there was another open slot.

She decided that marrying the man she loved was more important than all the frippery, so she got married (in the fluffy slippers and hair curlers; there was pictorial evidence!) and went with a blessing months later so that she could have the party with her friends and family.

/background

In the end, is the marriage important enough to you both that, if everything that can go wrong does go wrong, you'll go through with it anyway to be married to Shim? If the answer is yes, then it doesn't matter what happens at the wedding, as you will always be able to remember joining yourself to him. Anything else is just an amusing story to tell at family gatherings in the future.

Your true family and friends will just have a giggle at any mistakes, then pick you up (physically or metaphorically) dust you off and help fix whatever broke.

Anyone else doesn't matter anyway.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, my dear. I'm really looking forward to seeing you.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

We should talk about Parks and Recreation! I have only just started watching it recently, but I adore it. It's so cheering.

(ages away! ages! John Lewis are selling Christmas stuff!)
I saw mince pies in the supermarket the other day, but this is clearly utter lunacy. It is, as you say, ages.

I am so excited for you about the wedding! I will be thinking of you. I hope it is lovely and you are not too stressed. And even if things are not perfect, you will still be married at the end! (When I had my graduation ceremony, the college Dean of Degrees - very friendly, looked a bit like Derren Brown, gave us rigorous training in how to bow - told us, comfortingly, that as long as we made it to the Sheldonian in one piece, we would graduate, even if we got a few things wrong.) I am so impressed and awed by you managing the whole "feeling ready to get married" thing (a stage I hope to reach).

I wish I were a partner in a law firm so I could give you a job. You are excellent, and more than deserve one.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

(Also! Lucy Mangan, who I love very much, fell over at her wedding. And most people didn't notice and it was completely fine.)

[roga.livejournal.com]

You are great, you are amazing, even this post is beautiful because everything you write is beautiful, and the last points (1) through (4) fill me with delight. Anxiety happens, it's fine, I'm not brushing it aside or undervaluing it, but you are so wonderful and you are going to do so much more than fine ♥ I have all of the faith. All of it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Breathing, breathing, breathing! *grins* Sadly our small children are pre-verbal, but I take your points. Thank you, my dear.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to see you! And for such a truly special occasion. <3

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, lovely you.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It is SO GREAT. I am just mainlining it at the moment, it's so wonderful. I am breathing! I am breathing. Thank you. :)

[bibliotropic.livejournal.com]

*hugs*
Yay Shim!
I am feeling anxious enough myself that this will probably be incoherent and not helpful, but I'll do my best.
Re: 2. Everything could go wrong, and it will still be fine. I promise. So many things went wrong on my wedding and it was still beautiful and special and fine. The desired result was achieved. Guests talked about what a great time they had and most didn't even know that anything had gone wrong.
Re: 4. Breathe. If it will help you sleep/alleviate anxiety, drop me an e-mail and I'll spoil you without spoiling you. I mean, I'll just address the pertinent detail.

[sfruof.livejournal.com]

As Ms. Knope once said, "My speech doesn't need your luck. It needs a surgeon general's warning because it is harmful to your health."

[stained_glass]

Ah, dear one! *HUGS!* For wedding at least, I can reassure that all your friends love you and will be with you and even if something did go wrong we'd all laugh and have a lovely time, because we're just looking forward to celebrating you and Shim and how wonderful you both are and how wonderful you are together. For the rest, God knows I am the least suitable person to talk in any way sensibly about anxiety, but the fact about your friends all loving you remains, and if there's anything at all I can do please just say. <3

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I talked to my sister-out-law last night who is getting married on the 28th, and I asked her how she was feeling and she said, "I'm spinning between, "Oh God, I wish it was all over" and ... "Oh God, I wish it was all over." But it is really just a big party for all the people who love you most in the world, and everyone wants to see you and Shim doing a lovely joyful thing, and it will definitely not be awful.

Helen was unemployed between jobs and going to a million interviews when we got civil partnered too! It all turned out OK, and I think it will for you too. Masses of luck and hugs!

[biascut.livejournal.com]

(Also, you know that someone who has had THREE INTERVIEWS in a week is doing something right, right?!)

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

This sort of advice (which is brilliant, btw) always makes me think of this:
Whatever I may have done since, this remains. Scholar; Master of Arts; Domina; Senior Member of this University (statutum est quod Juniories Senioribus debitam et congruam reverentiam tum in privato tum in publico exhibeant); a place achieved, inalienable, worthy of reverence.

And, you know, her boyfriend was a shit and then died and then she was nearly hanged for his murder. Your wedding will be awesome.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

And you are having a honeymoon on a houseboat (right?) so there will be no cellar to find a corpse in.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I am sure you are right! All of this sounds so sensible. It is just all a bit mad right now and I am hoping several meals and a lot of sleep will cure me before Saturday. I am also sure you are right re: job interviews, though it is such a sinking feeling whenever I think of it. Onwards and upwards.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I love her. You are pretty great also.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

This is a very kind and cheering comment. Thank you. <3

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

<3 <3

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

<3 you are the best. I am so sorry you're also feeling anxious, it sucks. I finally listened to Night Vale last night - by expedient of falling asleep to it - and now I feel a lot better. Oh shoooooow.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're so lovely. Thank you, my dear.