I've Always Been Anxious

I have an anxiety disorder that started showing up when I was a child. Five years old, in fact, is the age that I can recall my first real worries.

Now don't misunderstand here. This is not supposed to be a post where I talk about my sad, sad childhood or something. Because I didn't have a bad childhood, all things considered. I had tons of fun, a family who loved me, and food to eat every day. Anxiety is just part of my life, and frankly, sometimes it's hilarious.

So now, back to my childhood. Five years old. Children are odd and I was certainly no exception. I wished that I was a baby and the reason was so that I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom on the toilet. I guess I thought it was too boring or tedious to take all the time away from playing and stuff. So any chance I got, I would wish to be a baby. 

Have you ever watched the old movie "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" with Don Knotts?

It's a classic. So in this movie, Don Knotts' character wishes he could be a fish because he's a dweeby misfit in real life and fish are his passion. So one day he's visiting the ocean and he's standing on a dock looking down at the fish, saying how much he wishes he could be a fish when PLOP! He falls into the water and starts doing this creepy evolution-wiggle into a fish!

Well, first Mr. Limpet is happy that he's a fish, but then he realizes that it's not actually as cool as he thought it would be and the ladies in the background music start singing, "Be careful what you wish, for wishes can come true. Be sure that every wish you make, is one that's right for you. So many people find there happiness in dreaming. Be careful what you wish for the wish that you make can come true!"

I watched this movie with my family after I had spent all of these wishes on becoming a baby. Once those ladies started singing that sad warning song, I got really worried that I was going to turn into a baby and I was going to regret it horribly.

I remember having this sick feeling of pure panic in my gut and it seemed to be on my mind for a long time afterward. Who knows how long it actually was, though.

Another vivid memory of one of my first bouts with anxiety is also from when I was five. There was a mouthwash commercial on T.V. and it said something about not swallowing the stuff. Well, I thought that it meant that I was never supposed to swallow my own saliva, so I was constantly spitting in the toilet, the trash and the sink, trying to make sure I didn't die from saliva poisoning or whatever I thought it was. Eventually my mom probably got sicked out about me spitting all the time and told me I didn't have to do that.

So here I am nearly 16 years later and I'm still anxious, but I've graduated to different useless things to be anxious about. Like all the moms shopping with their babies in Winco or an acquaintance who I can see walking down the hall at me at work.

A therapist once told me that if I lived in a time when I needed to flee or fight for my life, I would survive because I have an above-average flight response. In other words, if I were a bunny, I would probably never get eaten because I would run away all the time, even when I didn't need to. Then I would pass those super genes to my baby bunnies and all my posterity would be really speedy and never dinner. But since I'm not a bunny, I just live in my essentially safe world wasting all my excellent flight response capabilities on regular social interactions and other safe things.

Maybe I'll make this a thing and keep posting about dumb stuff I've worried about...

The Witch Nose

Oh, hey guys! Happy Halloween! You know, I actually woke up this morning and completely forgot it was Halloween. Times are different now. There was a time long ago when I thought a lot about Halloween and what my costume would be.

When I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be a witch for Halloween. Just like all the previous years I could remember. We had this costume box that had various items of clothing from Halloweens past and plays that my siblings had been in. Naturally, my costume came from that box.

The two best parts of the costume were the witch hat (obviously) and the witch's nose. This nose was rubber and green with a string that went around my head to hold it on. It was hollow and smelled really funny.

I had a great time traipsing around in my costume that kindergarten Halloween. The only problem was that I probably had a cold because my nose kept running. All throughout the day, I kept dumping the snot out of my witch nose and rubbing my real nose on my witch sleeve. I was a total sugar-high mess. Later I found out that I wasn't the only one who had snotted in the nasty family heirloom.

Year after year the cold air would make my nose run and year after year I wore the witch nose without washing it. (Well who knows, maybe my mom did.) However, despite the nastiness of the nose, I always had a great time wearing it. I'm sure I thought I was really terrifying. In a way I probably was, what with the snot dripping out of the witch nostrils.

Beauty Disasters

Lest anyone should ever think that I know a lot about beauty (not that I think anyone actually thinks that), I think I should tell you that historically and currently, I do not.

I've always admired those girls and women who seem to radiate with natural perfection every day. They show up to all these early-morning events (school, work) with their perfectly styled hair, their flawless skin, bagless eyes, and perfectly trimmed/waxed eyebrows.

How do they do it?! This is a history of me trying to figure out this whole make-up and hair thing:

Baby to toddler: Cute little self with precious, soft hair.

Kindergarten: Started "painting" nails (really this was just me globbing a bunch of fingernail polish onto my fingertips and nails). This is also the time when my bangs started way at the top of my head and were cut in a blunt line at my eyebrows. Sometimes this look is cute on girls and women, but it looked really awkward and strange on me.

First & second grade: Still had the power bangs which my mom sometimes curled for church. I occasionally tried growing out my bangs which resulted in lots of pictures with my overgrown bangs covering my eyes.

Third grade: Decided to stick with the bangs, rather than growing them out.

Fourth grade: Grew out the bangs, but kept them that way. I liked to part my hair right down the middle. I'm guessing that people with really pointy, oval faces like mine shouldn't part their hair right down the middle. This wasn't a good look for me.

Fifth grade: I learned how to put my hair in a ponytail. So I did. Every day. First it started out parted right down the middle and drawn in a tight ponytail with a scrunchy at the base of my head. Then about halfway through fifth grade, I started pulling my hair into a slicked straight back ponytail or half ponytail. The tighter the better!

Sixth grade: I started noticing that my legs were really hairy and my eyebrows were really bushy. This was a source of self-consciousness for me so one day I asked my mom if I could shave my legs. She said, "sure," so I marched right into the bathroom to take a shower. I had no idea what to do, but I figured that it was simple enough: just take the razor and slide it up your leg! I grabbed the old, plastic, two-bladed, semi-rusty, man-razor from off the shower shelf. I placed it firmly in the middle of my shin and with great force, pulled the razor upward. Shocked, I saw a stream of blood oozing from the inch-long wound I had just inflicted. Luckily I realized after that that I needed to go a lot softer on my legs. When people asked what happened to my leg I would say, "the razor fell on my leg while I was taking a shower."

Then, apparrently not learning from my shaving mishap, and wanted to not have "caterpillars" above my eyes, I asked my mom if I could pluck my eyebrows. Again, she said, "sure," so I marched into the bathroom once again and grabbed the (also rusty) tweezers. Carefully I plucked out hair after hair in a pain-filled haze. Eventually I was satisfied and stopped. I suppose I liked the way my brows were shaped because I kept doing them like that. They were bad. They were so bad. My idea of a good brow job was to pull half of my eyebrows out from the unibrow inward. I looked real weird. And even with half of my eyebrows yanked out, I wasn't very good about keeping them plucked (I'm still not...).

I still loved the ponytail in sixth grade. I had learned that I should take a shower every day, so I did. My hair would go right from sopping wet, to ponytail every single day. Eventually some of the girls in my class informed me (in what was probably an intervention of sorts) that I would grow mold on my head if I kept doing that every day. That terrified me, so I started leaving it down to dry before putting it into a ponytail.

Seventh-eighth grade: I got better at shaving for the most part and I even started applying mascara. Occassionally I would toy around with my mom's blush and pressed powder. I really didn't learn how to apply makeup properly until rather recently...oh well! No one ever said it looked bad, so maybe it wasn't. As far as hair goes during this time, I had two styles, air-dryed left down, and up in a ponytail. I never did my nails. I just kept them short so that I could play the violin.

Freshman year: Not much changed. My eyebrows somehow got worse, though. Bigger and badder. But I don't remember doing anything different, they just morphed that way.

Also, I thought I was making a super cute face. Hahahaha!

Sophomore year: This was a pretty good year beauty-wise! I used eyeliner respectfully and mascara. I didn't do much else, but it was okay because my skin was pretty good. My hair fell exactly how I wanted it to without doing much to it!

Junior year: Something possessed me to tweeze the heck out of my eyebrows until they were super skinny lines. I learned how to use real liquid foundation and eye shadow! I got some really bad, thick bangs. They were nasty. My face shape does not allow blunt bangs to look good on me. As much as I envisioned myself looking like Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada, I looked more like the "perfect human" from the more recent Miike Snow music videos.

Senior year: One time during the winter I grew my eyebrows out super thick. That was kind of gross. Otherwise, it wasn't too bad.

Freshman year of college: Most of the time my hair and makeup was okay. I painted my nails quite a bit. But I did go through a phase where I thought I might look good if I parted my hair right down the middle and styled it stick straight, but with curls at the end. Maybe I forgot that this didn't work for me before. My face comes to a point right at my nose so having the part down the middle makes me really pointy!

Last year to now: I apply makeup about half of the time. I rarely do my hair. I'm still rocking the air-dryed look simply because I just don't like to spend all the time it takes to really do something with my hair. Most of the time I get my makeup right!

So that's the history of my beauty disasters and occassional triumphs (if you want to see pictures of examples of me with bad eyebrows and hair, I'll put them up. But only if you want me to. They're bad). Now I have to tell you a particularly unfortunate story that just happened to me last week.

I bought dry shampoo! I've never had dry shampoo, so naturally I didn't know how to use it. So the first morning I tried it, I didn't really put enough on, so my hair was still greasy-nasty. The next morning I wouldn't be fooled. I sprayed that stuff on like a Pinterest crafter gone crazy with gold spray paint. Finally feeling that I had sprayed enough on to tame the grease, I brushed out my hair like the can told me. I looked in the mirror expectantly and found that I looked like an old lady! My hair was white! Frantically, I tried to brush it out and coax it into my tresses, but it wouldn't be contained. I had to go to a dentist appointment and unfortunately I still looked pretty old. But now I know, guys. Now I know.

Dear girls and women everywhere who know how to do these things correctly,

Were you just born with this knowledge? Did you have a bunch of sisters? Or maybe your mom knew a lot about it and imparted the knowledge of cosmetics and hair to you? Maybe I spent so much time trying to fit in with my brothers that I guess I just never noticed that much about beauty and therefore was blissfully unaware that I was breaking so many beauty no-no's (nos? nose?). Perhaps your skin is just nice and your hair is just beautiful and you didn't really do anything. Maybe one day I'll learn your trade. But honestly, probably not because even though I can see that I need some help, I just really don't care quite enough to do anything about it. Besides, my husband thinks I'm pretty, so there! :P Eat it, you beauties!

Sincerely,
Still clueless