KEEP THIS FOR A RAINY DAY

a photo I found while looking around today that I really, really love.

Just remember: other people look at you and think you have it all together. 

This morning I had a meeting in the flatiron with my editor at Abrams. 

Do you know how silly that sentence was just now? I just read it to myself and even I'm like, oh give me a break.

We were finalizing some photo resolution issues for the book. This has surprisingly been the most time consuming part of this entire process. There I was on one end of a desk with my laptop and about five million portable hard drives (no, there were just three), plus my old phone full of photos that I couldn't figure out how to transfer efficiently, and there was Holly on the other end of the desk on her iMac with all the book things open, with a bag of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies between us (peace offering to the book gods), and together we were over-analyzing photos of my face. Saying dumb things like, "I mean, I feel like I look sort of French in this one? Except for the Empire State Building there in the background, which maybe sort of ruins the point of it."

We made all kinds of crazy progress. And afterward, the book now 99.999% finished (and looking flipping rad, if I'm allowed to say so), my editor took me out to lunch. 

And, so, avocado toast happened.

We air kissed on the way out like you do when you are fabulous, and then I ran over to a coffee shop two blocks north to meet up with the wife of the CEO of one of my very favorite companies, who also happens to be a long time reader, and who is also, I will just say it, really freaking pretty. 

Side note: Do you know how amazing it is that you people reading my blog are all so very awesome? It's true. I love how the people I meet who read this blog are always completely rad, every single time. Surely I must have the coolest readers in all of the Internet. 

So, Tara and I, we met and she is adorable and competent and beautiful and witty and we had such a good time talking. And she had gifts! Did you know gifts are my love language? And then I met everyone at the office. I saw possibly the tiniest chihuahua on the planet. This office is full of a bunch of really handsome men by the way, holy cow, and then, my head brimming with ideas and projects and future exciting things, I dashed across Fifth Avenue to make a size exchange and wouldn't you know it? It had gone on sale! Price adjustment! Size adjustment! Huzzah! 

At this point I stopped in at City Bakery to use their restroom. Because pro tip for when you're in Union Square and happen to be human needing human things: City Bakery has a bathroom. And pretzel croissants.

On my way out I decided to wander through the Union Square Greenmarket. Heaven! I bought myself an apple for the long train ride home. (Side note, it was a dollar sixty. FOR AN APPLE.) The R was there and waiting for me the second I stepped onto the platform, and not only did I get a seat right away, I got a cold seat right away! Cold seats on the subway are better than price adjustments and air kisses. A cute couple was canoodling across the way from me, someone's earbuds were playing Beyoncé. I had an apple and a Diet Coke and a book I was proud of having written and opportunities that excited me and a really cute, now-cheaper, now-fits-my-kid-right shirt in a shopping bag and all was right with the world!

And then I promptly had myself a massive anxiety attack. 

Do you get anxiety attacks? I get anxiety attacks. 

I haven't always been an anxious person . . . hahahahaha writing that just now was really entertaining, no I have always been an anxious person, but I haven't always been an anxious attack kind of person, and I feel like this warrants a distinction. Attacks are a fairly recent development in the Natalie's Neurotic Tendencies treasure chest. I've been having them occasionally for just under two years now, and they seem to morph into different manifestations depending on whether or not it is flu season and just how many cold mini Twix bars I've raided from the fridge that day. 

(Pro tip: keep your mini Twix bars in yo fridge.) 

My first anxiety attack I didn't know was an anxiety attack. I thought it was the stomach flu. It was Christmas Eve. We had just finished Christmas Eve dinner with a few friends from church. Most of these friends were new friends, some of these friends were old friends, and one of these friends was the kind of new friend who is friendly with all of your other friends, except not friendly with you. And I hadn't quite figured out the reason yet, so the night felt tense. The following day, after having Christmas Morning as just-us-three, we'd be flying to Utah. This was to be my first Christmas Eve and Morning in my own home, with my own budding traditions, a tiny victory I had won only after a lot of negotiating and cajoling, and there we were on our way out the door after saying goodbye and Happy Christmas and things and then stopping for one second longer for another small conversation, when I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick.

This was to be the anxiety attack that I would experience, over and over, pretty much every day, for the following 6 months. Over all sorts of things. Anything could set it off. All night long, that first attack, any time I'd try to get up to accomplish anything--make the aebelskivers, stuff the stockings, set out Huck's Christmas gifts, I'd be so overcome by nausea that I'd have to lay back down and only breathe. The only relief I could get was from listening to the clock go Tick. Tick. Tick. And counting my breaths. Tick. Tick. Exhale. Weeeeeeird kind of stomach flu, amiright? 

That was a really sad Christmas and I still feel irritated when I think about it.

You all know the rest of the story. To sum up: 

1. I resolved the major personal issues that were causing me stress, as best I could. (You can never really resolve all the personal issues that cause you stress, can you?)

2. I noticed a pattern and saw a doctor, got diagnosed with PMDD, tried all different kinds of medications and treatments and diets and supplements, lost a lot of weight in the process and then gained most of it back, and thankfully now only have one rough cycle maybe every few months (hooray!) 

3. I got really into Buddhism for a minute there? Let's talk about that later.

4. I made peace with the fact that I was Writing A Book, which would be Read By People, a lot of whom like to Hate Me For Sport, who would soon get to Hate Me Even Harder for all sorts of New And Improved Reasons that I was, more or less, willingly handing over. I tell you I made peace with this!!!!!! (This required mucho therapy.) (Ladies, and you know who you are, what you are doing is sick and wrong. Just FYI.) (1% of the time I still feel really hurt when I think of that whole . . . thing . . . but it's a very slim 1%, and seriously. KUDOS TO ME.)

Here I am now, I am sitting on my couch, it is late October, and I can count on just one hand the number of anxiety attacks I have had since the summer. This is a huge accomplishment for me, especially given the last two years and things. I feel more or less back to normal. Rough menstrual cycles are the exception now, not the norm. But they do still sneak up on me, and today was a reminder that illogical feelings can sneak up on you even in the best of times. When things are going really well, and precisely nothing is wrong, I can still create this sudden dread for myself, like I am going to Screw It All Up, that They Are All Wrong, that I Am Not Enough, and Holy Holy Shit.

Sometimes, my throat still closes up, sometimes my stomach still ties itself in knots. Sometimes I can't swallow. My breathing gets shallow and I feel completely awful about myself, like I'm the worst person alive. Even if I'm not trapped under the East River when this happens it still feels like I'm trapped under the East River when this happens. How rude is that? Usually I check my period tracker and I'm like, "Oh yeah. Hi, Day 20." But this is what I've learned to do, it's a trick that never fails me, and maybe it'll help another sister out in a similar situation sometime:

I remind myself that the only thing I need to do in this life is love. 

That is it. Love.

(I know, cheeseballs, stick with me here.)

I pick somebody around me. I imagine the love that other people must feel for that person, the love that it took to make that person, the love that that person must feel for others. (Sometimes I picture that person as a newborn? Weird thing but newborns to me are the most powerful anti-anxiety drug ever.) If I can just find that place inside me where I feel Love for something, if I can grasp onto it, I can pull that love out and push it outside of me until that is all that I am. Just love. Love for myself, love for that stranger, love for that subway pole that is probably covered in other people's urine but that some metal worker somewhere installed and put all this effort into . . . 

As long as I feel Love, nothing can hurt me. 

So that's all, I just felt compelled to write that down today, for whatever reason. 

Hang in there. 

Somebody out there loves you. A whole whole lot.