Today is the day that I woke up as my 80-year-old self. Grumpy, inconsolable, maybe something closer to a two year old if it weren’t for all the Diet Mountain Dew drinking. Nothing is quite right. My mother called at 8:20 on one of the two days of the week that I would ever be able to sleep in until 8:20. In her defense, I’d told her I was getting up early, but that didn’t happen, because I stayed up past midnight working on a report. A report that left me in an ornery rage, wondering why it was that no one could get things right, why subject and verb agreement clearly matter to no one but me, why I was home making obvious corrections while the rest of the world was drinking champagne and eating Taco Bell as their eighth meal, why I was putting so much effort into something I won’t remember in two or three years. Quite possibly two or three weeks.
My agitation is showing itself physically. Yesterday I arrived at the salon before it opened, before the manager had even come to unlock the door. I was the first customer, and I was unduly proud of this. Yet even in the chair, feet dangling in the warm, churning water, I couldn’t calm down. “Relax,” the woman said, massaging my feet with what felt like unusually strong hands. “It’s better when you relax.”
I wanted to kick her in the face. I’m not particularly good at getting instructions from people I know, people I’m expecting to say such things to me, like my boss or my mother. But I’m especially bad at getting feedback on obvious things that I can’t do, things that seem simple for other people but are beyond my reach for one reason or another. Throwing a Frisbee? “Just flick your wrist,” at least 800 people have said to me over the years. Wait. So throwing a disc horizontally through the air involves my hand and wrist? Huh! So if I just flick it all will work like a charm, and the Frisbee won’t go sailing into the street? Thanks, Einstein. And so it was with the pedicurist. Just calm down, relax your feet, she said, pushing my heel onto the towel below it. The woman next to me chuckled. I felt like a fool. It’s like telling depressed people to cheer up. Don’t you think I’d relax if I could?
I have so much energy that I feel paralyzed. Odd, yes, but completely true. I’m a bottle of Coke that’s been rolled down the stairs, across the front lawn and into the street. I’m lying in the gutter waiting for some unsuspecting child to come upon me. I’m ready to spit at the smallest twist, ready to shower boy and sky and irritated parent with carbonated sap that’ll teach them right and good for picking me up in the first place. It would be better if someone with experience in such things would find me first, would take a pin to my side and let the pressure out slowly. Fizzzzzzz. Or maybe I just need to lie here on the sidelines until things die down.
29 Comments
As a fellow non-relaxer, I feel you on this. And I abhor when someone tells me to “relax”. IF I COULD I WOULD YOU TOOL.
Am squeeing that YOU STILL READ THIS BLOG! #weeping
Am happy to say that the foul mood was relieved by some alone time and the second Harry Potter movie. Ok. Relieved partially.
xoxo, sizz.
“Relax” as a command is my most loathed thing. I don’t freaking relax. Ever. It is not in my DNA. I cannot fight the DNA.
I will enjoy my tense pedicure very much, THANK YOU.
Thank the lawd, Lexa. I’m pretty sure I’m never at true rest. Even on the beach or taking a nap, I’m plotting my next move. Or worrying about my bikini line. Or studying that scrawny 80-yr-old using a placemat as a beach towel. That kind of thing.
I have NEVER been able to relax for massages (or anything else really) and I thought it might be because I just didn’t know how to (well I obviously don’t but you know what I mean). I feel better knowing there are others out there! Also know that fizzzzzz feeling, it never went away when I was living in Australia… You have all my sympathy Kris…
“Relax!” “Just be happy!” Look fool, if I could do any of those things, I WOULD.
*ahem*
Mastering the fizzzzzz I have not.
When I was younger, I used to tell my sister to “relax” and “calm down” when she got worked up about something *specifically* because I knew it would drive her more crazy. (It’s something only a sister would do, isn’t it?).
Telling someone to “relax” is pretty much the perfect way to stress them out!
I hate this. I was cripped with anxiety this past winter, so badly that I was having multiple panic attacks a week. And if one more person told me to “just get over it” or “stop stressing”, I was going to kill someone. It makes you feel crazier than you actually are.
You aren’t crazy. No one here will tell you to relax. For the people who do, give yourself permission to tell them to SUCK IT.
I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE BLOGGING AGAIN YOUR FLUENT PROSE STYLINGS REALLY RELAX THE CRAP OUT OF ME
I think if we stuck you with a pin you’d leak and spray everywhere. What’s needed is a gentle twist of the cap so you can sighhhhhhhh it all out.
Then again, plastering the kid might be fun.
While I am able to relax, my brain rarely does, so I understand. I also understand tightly wound and wondering why I am the only one who cares and exasperation at people stating the obvious. Honestly, if everyone else had all the answers why is the world not perfect?
First — welcome back to the wide world of writing; I, for one, am overglad to see it.
Secondly — what is WITH those weird people that can actually relax for things like massages and pedis and so forth? (not that I’ve had a pedi, so maybe it WOULD relax me, but I doubt it.) I’ve always been the kind that can GIVE a backrub, but can’t take one…they feel weird to me, probably because I can’t ever relax enough to enjoy them. I seem to be in a constant state of tense shoulders and a zippy mind.
It is tiring, I’ll admit. And occasionally I can shed it, mostly when I completely unplug my life and do something different (travel helps).
We’re all weird, I guess, but at least we are all in the same boat.
Dude, I feel the same way when some douchebag tells me to smile. The last time it happened, I stopped, turned to the guy (it always seems to be a guy) and said “Fuck Off!” with a huge smile on my face.
It may have seemed rude, but at least I didn’t punch him in the face. Progress, right?
I’ve only known one person that ever worked with–my nephew. When he was little (4 or 5?), my sister would tell him to relax and he would! You could see it! Bizarre.
I also suck at relaxing but kick ass at being lazy.
Go figure.
Maybe equal parts boredom and depression, with the anger leaking out? (I never actually applied to medical school, to be honest, so who the hell knows.)
Glad to see u writing again. Missed u!
I require a bottle of red wine and a handful of valium in order to properly relax.
Give me a shout. I will happily share.
I can’t believe these words are leaving my mouth but I have found one of the two activities helps me relax a litte:
(1) going to the gym with Pat Benatar blaring in my iPod so I can pretend I’m a rebellious teen runaway prostitute dancing away from my sleezy pimp (whilst on a recumbant bike); or
(2) a marathon of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding with a bucket of homemade popcorn and a tub of low-fat Turkey Hill ice-cream topped with rainbow sprinkles.
If it’s really bad, I’ll combine both activities into one day.
Miss you, kitten!
I can’t throw a frisbee either. I miss you!! I’m so glad you blogged again <3
I’m not a great relaxer. Even when I can get my body to do so, my brain is ON! I’m trying to do more deep breathing when I’m tense, but I often forget.
And I too want to smack the shit out of anyone who tells me to just relax.
People tell me to smile all of the time. One of these days I really am going to shout out, “MY MOUTH DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.”
I am here to go roll things over or burn them with you, just so you know.
it’s a funny thing, tension. I work all day long relaxing people into submission…but me? migraines, boulder shoulder, and a bitch streak a mile wide when I am in the car.
Which is the long, whiny way of saying I relate.
Vacation?
New hobby?
Less responsibility in life?
Or, how about I just commiserate with you and not try to fix you. :)
To see you back great it is….. :)
“I wanted to kick her in the face”…OMG, I just spit out my coffee laughing so hard! That’s how I feel most of the time…that is why valium is my little friend. It keeps me from hurting people :) Good to have you back.
I hate it when the pedicurist tries to talk to me. I’m TRYING to relax. Also? Rub harder, dammit! I could rub my OWN feet this lamely, but I’m paying you to make me feel better!
i’m too relaxed.
slovenly.
drunkenly.
i’m learning to live with this condition.
I miss you here.
That is all.
dammit, how do people not know that it’s HORRIBLE to tell a person who doesn’t/can’t relax to RELAX?!?! i fucking hate that. it makes me tense up all the goddamn more.
and now i’m angry.
but i get you. i so get this post.