My Anxiety, part 3

The final chapter in my weeklong anxiety fiasco. In case you guys are wondering, I am starting to feel better, and have only mildly freaked out over things. (Which is totally normal for me, apparently I'm becoming a bit high strung in my 20's.) I left off at the point where my sister and I were actually on the right route to the party.

My sister and I finally got to the party at a little after 8 pm, even though we had planned to be there by 7 pm at the latest. The party was starting to wind down, but there were still a fair number of guests. There were a couple of people besides for the Joshes that I knew from camp, one quiet girl that I didn't know very well, and another girl I'll refer to as "Roommate Coworker." Roommate coworker was, well, obviously my roommate this past summer. I don't know how much I blogged about this in the past, all in all, sometimes things were a bit rocky between me and roommate coworker. It's like my mom always told me "you never really know someone until you have to live with them." Yeah, that pretty much sums up me and roommate coworker. We were pretty good friends going in to the summer, but by the end of the summer she did a lot of things to drive me nuts.

Anyhow, things were off to a good start. The Joshes gave me and my sister a tour of the house, and offered us snacks. There was one slightly awkward moment when my sister made a joke about her having MS, and I could tell that everyone was kind of feeling odd about laughing at her joke. (It was a funny joke, but it does feel strange to laugh at someone making fun of themselves for having a chronic illness.) Other than that, the party was going well, and my sister immediately became long lost friends with everyone in the room. My sister, however obnoxious and bratty she can be with me, has a talent for coming off as charming and the life of the party. That was definitely fine by me, because with the anxiety I had been having over the past few days, I was happy to not have all the attention on me.

We all ended up settling in the living room, chatting about what's been going on since camp, and retelling silly stories from the previous summer. At that point the other guests had left, and my sister was the only non-work person left. My sister had her fair share of stories to tell as well, so she didn't seem left out or out of the loop like she could have been. Well, I should have known that once the camp stories started, someone was going to ask me the inevitable "Are you coming back next summer?" question. It was Josh F., and he and roommate coworker seemed really eager for the question. I tried to kind of side step the question, but of course they weren't giving up that easily. The conversation pretty much went as follows:

"So, Tamara, what would you do with your summer if you don't do camp?" - Josh F.
"Well, I could start grad school as early as May." - Me
"Well that would be pretty awesome, I'm doing grad school next year too. So is roommate coworker!" - Josh F.
"Yup, I've been writing personal statements. I've finally finished all my applications. I pretty much used all my camp experiences as a focus point on my personal statements. I wrote a paragraph about why I think Heidi is the perfect example of what someone in arts management should be." - Roommate Coworker
[In my head] "I thought personal statements were supposed to be about you? As in your personal experiences? Not a love letter of why you kiss our boss's ass."
[Out loud] "Oh that's great. Well, you've got the hard part done. I'm just now starting the application process." - Me
"So besides for grad school, what's holding you back?" - Josh F.
"Um, I don't know. I guess Jenn wants two assistants, and she'd like Coworker J to be one of them. But he and I sometimes couldn't work well together. It's just an awkward situation." - Me
"Well Tamara, maybe you should consider it. I mean, then maybe the health lodge could always have an assistant on duty. And you know, J said he wouldn't come back if he didn't get made an assistant." - Josh F.
"I know. I have considered it. And by the way, there was always an assistant on duty. It was ME. It's just awkward, and you know...." - Me
"Yeah, but you should consider it. Besides, it was great for us! We got to take shifts, so we could have some free time. Maybe you and J could work that out?" - Roommate coworker
[In my head] "Free time. What's that? Must be nice."
[Out loud] "Yeah I know. It just is what it is. It's not my decision to make, so I'm not thinking about it. I talked to Adrian already, so it is what it is." - Me
"We've talked to Adrian already, too! So, what did you discuss with Adrian?" - Josh F.
"Huh? What did we discuss? A bit of everything I guess." - Me
"What position do you want to do next year?" - Josh F.
"Um... I don't know. Whatever. We really didn't discuss that. " - Me
"Hey, so let me tell you guys this story about when I was a camper! There was this girl next to me, who buried her violin in the sand!" - Tiffany

Yup... that was our conversation. I was clearly getting miffed towards the end, and my sister came to the rescue by changing the subject. Even though Josh and roommate coworker didn't seem to get the clue that I wasn't wanting to discuss things, my sister sure did. Maybe I was just being too moody, but am I the only one who thinks it was really rude to be asked what I had been discussing with one of our bosses? We had been having such a good time, and then suddenly one brief conversation was making me sorry that I came. It's like, I'm already stressed enough, and now I've got my friends making me more stressed out by getting nosy. It wasn't too long after that and we went left because we needed to meet my brother in law for a late dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.

******

The rest of my anxiety after that point was caused by relatively minor things (such as a friend I invited to my birthday party trying to talk me in to inviting a bunch of people from high school... that I was never friends with... because she thought it would be a good time to have a "get together" with people... even though it is my birthday party) and was something I could deal with. I haven't had another anxiety attack, and my anxiety definitely seems on a downward slope. I did research and decide to get some Valerian Root, thanks to Robin's suggestion, but I haven't felt the need to use it as of now. The woman at the Vitamin World shop gave me a hassle when I was buying it, because apparently me not needing her expert advice meant I was going to try to make heroin from it or something. LOL who knows. Anyway, tonight we are doing my pre-birthday birthday party. :) I'm super excited! It's just going to be a girl's night out at my favorite restaurant, and probably seeing the movie 27 Dresses. I spent entirely too much money on my birthday outfit, but I figured, it's my day, and I want to hot, or fierce, or cutesy, or whatever else you wanna call it. I'm sure I'll have pictures to add later.