I had a day bursting with anxiety today. No reason. Life has been bubbeling along like a brooke in the spring as the snow begins to melt. But I havent' been sleeping well. Vivid dreams have been assailing me and keeping my mind from melting into a restful oblivion for eight hours a night I need. As a result I have developed a very unattractive habbit of chewing the inside of my right cheek until it starts to get sore and bleed.. and they I chew off the tender scar tissue. I'm becoming neurotic.
After a somewhat wasteful but relaxing morning, I left my cozy apartment and the anxiety fell over my mind like a veil. Nothing in particular. I felt emotionally blind, reaching in front of me with a long stick but only touching a spot here or there without getting any real pictuer of what was around me or what was going on. I had lunch with Peter and gazed disinterestedly out the window at people walking by. Then we went and bought him an expensive and very exciting new guitar. I wanted him to have it and thought it was a very good expenditure, but my ability to share in his excitement was dulled by my pattering pulse and mild irritation.
On the way home I stopped by a store to look at wallpaper for our new bedroom. We have decided to wait a little while with the bathroom renovation but I really wanted to change something in the flat, to put my stamp on it and declare to the ether that this is now me, my place. I looked for quite a while, comparing the shades of cream, white, gold, beige, silver that were blended together in various luminous striped patterns and settled on one. Then I rang Peter to tell him about it. He was still filled with his guitar and totally disinterested in bedroomwall paper. I ended the conversation and stood alone in the middle of the store feeling heavy. So I decided to buy the wall paper.
I got up to the counter and struggled my way through ordering the desired design in Swedish, then I looked at the paper up close in the brighter light of the check out counter and felt a knot of anxiety grip my throat. Were the darkest stripes too brown? Maybe they were too much colour, too much solidity, to much to much to much. I walked back to the shelf and grabbed the lightest silvery white striped paper I could find and went back tot he counter.
"I've changed my mind. I'll take this one instead."
I said that in Swedish of course and it took me a minute to be understood. Then I turned, still heavily, to wander out to my car and head home. But I never made it even to putting on my seatbelt. I knew that my first choice was right. The pale option was cold. Too cold for my bedroom. And it didn't have enough flexibility of colour. I got back out of my car and hurried back into the store. I explained to the only sales woman I could find that I needed to look again. The colour wasn't right. "Of course" she said. We then proceeded to spend about fifteen minutes snipping bits of paper for me to take home and examine in the light of my room with my furniture. At the end of the encounter I said that I'd call and confirm or alter my order and that I was glad they hadn't sent it out yet.
But they had. While I was standing talking to the woman, another sales agent had called my order in. It's all computerized now you know. After you choose there is no turning back. Don't even think about changing your mind. Or pay a 30% fee for being a pinnipanna, a scatterbrain, a woman with a cloud of anxiety eating away at her self confidence like coke eats away at tooth enamal.
Bah. "Leave it," says Peter... "It can't be too bad if it is just your second choice." So I call the store and say alright, don't worry about it. Then drive home now hosting a creature in my belly wich is circiling discontentedly around the axis of its body, hunting in vein for the perfect position to snuggle into.
At home I tape the two bits of paper to the wall. Damn. It is 2019 I want.. not 2018. Should I spend the next six years encased in four wall of silvery chill because I had an anxious day? No! I won't. I don't give a damn if every single person on the planet thinks I'm a silly feather head. I call back.. again.. and change my order.
The creature stills and the knot loosens. I knew I was right. 2019 is perfect. Every time I walk by the two unevenly taped up bits of sample wall paper for the rest of the day I feel satisified. I chose well. Warm, creamy, a streak of gold, a breeze of white.
Then I take my brown-eyed, loving little dog to the barn and spend two hours brushing and riding my horse and talking with my dog. As I'm cooling Gus off with a slow walk around the ring, I drop the reins and claps my arms around his neck inhaling his horse hair, sweat scent and soak up the sky. There is a rip in it, and through that rip is splashing warm fushia, gold, and amber. I chose well.
