T-0 Days

I have been unnaturally calm the last few days.  I'm not sure what it seems like from the outside, but from from the inside looking in, it's a little unnerving.  I've never really noticed it before, but when I'm stressed--when things are at a breaking point--I shed emotion in favor of hyper-rationalism.  And avoidance, also.  It's like I'm a robot.  A robot that refuses to connect to the internet mainframe.  Because the internet, despite existing and functioning for essentially the totality of my life, is still a variable bitch.  Excuse my language.

Every Wednesday morning, in the place of our regularly scheduled morning meeting in the backyard, students meet in their homeroom classes for something the school calls "Caring Counts."  Being an almost-middle school teacher with a supreme level of disgust for using baby language with my students (because they're babied enough as it is), we simply call it "Class Meeting."  In this class meeting, we work on emotional intelligence: knowing and understanding how our emotions factor into the way that we relate and interact with others.  Recently, the meeting centered around our "stress styles": how we behave when faced with a stressful situation.  Most people adopt one of four styles: The Fighter (anger/confrontation), The Avoider (avoidance), The Victim (blame), or The Computer (unemotional reason).  It is, of course, more complicated than that; people don't always fall into the same stress style every time, and sometimes they fall into more than one, at different stages.  But if we keep it simple and say that each person has one particular style, then I'm a computer.  Very much a computer.

I can thank my mother for this.  In fact, I can cite numerous moments in my life when I had a problem, and her response was to offer me potential solutions.   Except that I didn't want solutions; I wanted to be sad.  But she's a practical woman to her core, and problem-solving is what she does best.  A lot of the time, this is a deficiency on her (and my) part. But sometimes, it's practicality that's needed.  When Katrina hit and the city evacuated, I was at school in Virginia.  That semester, I was taking classes like Francophone Moroccan Literature and Special Collections and Copyright.  They seemed pointless--purposeless and abstract--in the face of a very concrete and immediate disaster.  I wanted to go home.  I wanted to be with my family.  But my mom wouldn't let me.  I don't remember talking about how I felt with her--when I could get through on the phone, that is--I just remember her saying that I needed to stay in school.  That I should visit a counselor and maybe drop a class to take it easy that semester.  I dropped the class.  But instead of confronting my survivor guilt with a counselor, I proceeded to bury my feelings, since they didn't seem to be doing me any practical good.  As the behavior interventionist at our school says, "acorns and oaks."  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

This journey towards homeownership has been harder than I thought.  Everyone told me it would be hard, and stressful, and they were right.  As I've said before, I didn't realize how much so until my offer was accepted and the real work began.  The purchase has never been a done deal, and I have spent the last seven weeks or so fluctuating between anger and sadness and worry and reason, all the while trying not to get too attached.  Because you just never know.  It is currently the day of, and not only do I not have any guarantee that this deal is going through, but I don't even know where I'm supposed to be to sign the papers in five hours.  People keep telling me it's going to happen, and that everyone involved in the process wants it to happen as much as me, but I feel less sure.  Uncertainty isn't my favorite, and so I've spent the last three days unnaturally calm, trying to ignore the burden on my shoulders.  Because I'm afraid to feel either happy or cynical, nervous that either one would somehow cause the Universe to dismantle the deal.

I'm afraid that despite delivering weekly lessons, I'm not the best teacher of emotional intelligence.  In fact, I could use quite a bit of EI instruction myself.  Over the course of my life--a very cushy and sheltered life compared to most people in this world, I recognize--I have fallen into the "knock on wood" trap.  When faced with an uncertain future, if I even think that I'll get what I want, I knock the hell out of a nearby piece of lumber.  I refuse to assume that things will go my way.  Because every time I assume that they will, they don't.  It's like I feel the need to constantly prepare myself for disappointment or otherwise pretend that nothing's happening at all.  I'm pretty sure this is unhealthy.

Recently, as I was mindlessly perusing the news feed of my Facebook account instead of sleeping off the cold I caught this week, I ran across a TED article about languages and how they affect the way we think and behave.  According to the article, there is no tense distinction between past, present, and future in languages like Chinese.  As a result, speakers of the asian language have a tendency to see the future as a more immediate entity.  On the other hand, speakers of tensed languages, like English, see the future as a more distant concept.  The result is that Chinese speakers are better savers; English speakers tend to function on the premise of "I've got time."  I wish I spoke Chinese; not only because it would massively increase my employment options, but because I think it would help me worry less.  I tend to focus very little emotional energy into the present moment and instead ruminate and worry a great deal about the far-off future and the moments leading up to it.  I suppose it's not surprising that meditation and mindfulness are often associated with Buddhism, a religion that has shaped Chinese culture for the last two millennia.  Catholics have a fair amount of history with meditation as a Church, but it's usually left to the people crazy enough to cloister themselves.  The rest of us worry worry worry, feel guilt guilt guilt.  In Chinese Buddhism, lay people's meditation practices function much like those of Buddhist monks.  Like I said, I could learn something from the Chinese.

When the construction loan fell through a couple of weeks ago and we reverted to conventional, my parents offered me a personal loan to cover the expenses associated with repairs.  This is no chump change.  I had to sign a paper for IRS purposes to demonstrate my understanding that I would be paying interest on this loan, and that the totality of the loan would be repaid in three years.  Three years.  The loan is approximately half of my yearly income before taxes, and I don't know how I'm going to come up with that much money in three years.  I'm already struggling with the idea of owing a bank for the next thirty years of my life (since I haven't even lived thirty years yet).  Owing more money more immediately just makes things that much more inconceivable.  I know that my parents would extend the loan as needed, but still.  I worry worry worry, and then, realizing that there's nothing I can do about it right now, I revert to calm.  I ignore what I can't do anything about.  Again, I'm pretty sure this is unhealthy.

So, pray for me today, and for the next thirty years.  And if you know of any good, well-paid summer jobs or meditation classes, let me know.  I'm gonna need one of each.