RECIPE OF AN ANXIETY ATTACK

Stick the landing. Always stick the landing.

You’re in the process of reconstructing your identity and everything you found safety in from the ground up, but don’t skip a beat. Don’t falter, don’t mess up, ever. Don’t look at the warning signs, they’ll only slow you down.

Go to work every day, embrace the extra hours and effort of the side hustle. Bright, perfect, productive, organized, happy, put-together.

Devastated yet friendly and patient.

Exhausted yet your performance remains flawless. Keeping it up rips away pieces of your soul, but you’re used to burning.

Capable, necessary, punctual. The list only grows longer, harder, more complicated, but no one will be able to tell you’re consumed by panic. You’ve been doing this for so long it’s an art form.

You can’t accept the alternative, so you choose self-destruction over mediocrity.

You fear that you can’t rely on anyone. Love is convenience. If you want something done right, do it yourself.

You left fundamentalism because you wanted to be human.

But this doesn’t seem much different, does it?

You’re still trying to be a machine.

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A/N: Bad habits die hard, and had to face a few of mine this week.

Noncommittal

The fluorescent study lamp above my desk buzzes fitfully, and I try to ignore it as I struggle to keep my attention on my homework. Week eight of the fall semester is almost over, and I find I still have no attention span for the duties of a student. I used to be so studious, but now I’m simply apathetic.

Normally, I over-think everything. I worry I’m not going to measure up, or that I’ll fall behind. I’m afraid of not caring enough, even when this shows I actually care quite a bit. This semester, however I have been experiencing the mystifying sensation of truly not caring. I find it freeing, fascinating, and concerning all in one confusing mix.

Is it acceptable to be noncommittal? This is a question I have been pondering over the last several months. Is it all right to decide not to force oneself to do something when the right “feeling” just isn’t there? (An excuse I have been using to procrastinate on homework lately.)

Since May, I’ve been attempting to take obligation in moderation, feeling out life and my relationship with God and trying to escape overbearing self-inflicted guilt-tripping. After spending twenty years in a cycle of making plans, attempting to be disciplined, reworking reformed plans over and over again, I think I finally grew sick of it. I was never content, never measuring up to my own standards. I just wanted to learn to be content, which I think is the purpose of this season. I need to learn to operate within my ambitious personality and move forward without feeling so incredibly pressured to improve.

So, essentially, I have been cruising, ignoring the idea that I should be more disciplined. I haven’t really read my Bible in months. I refrain from guilt-tripping myself for not trying to sit myself down to pray often.

But God calls us to be intentional, disciplined, and audacious in our faith, which makes me worry. I feel like I’ve sat myself down in a corner, engulfed by a huge garish sweater of complacency, the collar pulled up over my nose. Does my current lifestyle serve a purpose, or am I just trying to justify being disgustingly self-indulgent? Where does respite become avoidance?

During the summer, the descent into this vacation from life was largely unintentional, and it worried me. I asked God about it, and he replied with instructions to simply trust Him. The way things are going, I think I may finally learn what it means to be content with what I am.

So, though my actions have been making me a little nervous, I will continue to trust God to lead me in this season and to keep me from crossing the line. No matter what happens, no matter how ineffective my attention span becomes or how long these confusing, noncommittal times persist, my heart will always belong to Him.