I don't know about anyone else, but I have been noticing Anxiety lately. I mean how could I help it? Anxiety has moved right into my house, camped out in my own living room! Leering at me with its purple face and lime green 1970s pants.
And what do you do about an unwanted guest?
At our house, perhaps like yours, we have a rule: we expect guests to leave after 3 days. And usually they do, with the exception of my brothers-in-law who stayed for 4 years.
But that's different. My brothers-in-law are charming and attractive, and they cook dinner for us much more elaborately than we cook for ourselves. Plus they were invited.
But Anxiety? I don't remember consciously inviting Anxiety. Maybe I needed to double-bolt the door. Maybe I needed to paint lamb's blood on the door post.
But alas I didn't do those things, and now Anxiety has taken up what seems to be permanent residence.
And what a terrible guest! Ungrateful. Unhelpful. Interfering.
Anxiety somehow knows all my buttons. It can sneak up behind me and say, "Hide!" And before I know what I'm doing, I am cowering in bed under the sheets. Not only am I cowering in bed under the sheets, I am convinced that in bed under the sheets is the best place to be.
And oh! Anxiety takes up space. It loves to listen to the radio and will blast the news from morning till night, resisting anyone's attempts to change the station to Oldies or Light Classical.
Anxiety interferes with my work and my relationships. If I turn my back, Anxiety sits right down at my computer, and starts answering my emails before I can stop it. Other times I open my mouth to speak and the words I hear coming out are not my own; I look over my shoulder and there is Anxiety – Edgar Bergen to my Mortimer Snerd – barely moving its lips, but it is pulling the strings. I look back at the person I'm speaking to, hoping they can see that the content and the tone were not my own.
Now we are not monsters in my household. We don't tell guests to leave. But I have tried hinting. "Oh look, how pretty it is outside," I point out. "Maybe you want to go for a walk!"
"Parks are closed," responds Anxiety, barely looking up from the bathroom floor, where it is busy counting our rolls of toilet paper, with judgmental grunts.
"How about a nap?" I suggest, knowing full well that Anxiety doesn't get much sleep. I know this because when I wake up during the night, Anxiety is always right there.
Anxiety has slimed its way into all the corners of my home, leaving greasy purple fingerprints on the fridge where it has been inventorying the perishables. I stand in the kitchen watching it, wondering how this could have happened, scratching my head in bewilderment, and without even turning, Anxiety says, "Did you wash those hands?"
The other day I tried having a little heart-to-heart with it. "So, how did you end up here," I asked. "How did you even come to be?"
"Oh, I'll tell you," it responded. "My birth was noble and glorious. I am a perfect blending, a synergy, of many beautiful ingredients. First of all, there is the Not-Knowing. Not knowing where all of this will go; not even knowing where things will be next week. That's one ingredient. And then there's helplessness. Because there's nothing really you can do, Irwin, is there?" (It seemed to relish saying that.)
"Then there was some Well-Founded Fear, and several cups of Worry about Loved Ones, a splash of Anticipatory Grief and a soupçon of Carefully Hidden Low Self-Esteem." It paused, smiling, deep in remembrance.
"Is that it?" I asked.
"Oh – and some favorable epigenetics. A gift from your great grandparents. Something about a pogrom. Easter, 1903..."
I talked to my lawyer about eviction. But she thinks it would look bad during this emergency and that I need to set an example. I tried to explain this is different, but she just scrunched up her face at me.
So I've had to figure it out for myself. Carefully noticing and cataloguing what makes Anxiety lick its chops, and what makes it slink off and frown in the corner.
So far, here is what Anxiety hates:
when I close my computer
when I stay still or breathe deep
when I bring my attention to something tiny in the world – like the petals of a forget-me-not or the pollen on the legs of the bees alighting on the forget-me-not
when I think of how much I'm looking forward to Pesach and wonder whether I'll make borscht
when I think about someone I care about, and in my heart I offer a prayer for them or send them love.
I'm sure there's more, and I will figure it out. But for now these are things that make Anxiety sit on the corner of the sofa and get super quiet. I know it will be up and about again, but each time I will be readier. Slowly, slowly, we're learning to live together.