Today is a bad day.
That is a lie.
Today is a bad day in a string of many recent bad days.
Even days that might seem like good days are often bad days under the surface.
What do I do to counter bad days? I have "unhealthy coping mechanisms," according to a health quiz offered by my employer. Not all of my coping mechanisms are unhealthy, but merely selecting "alcohol" as one of the many ways I handle stress or anxiety gets me the stamp. The funny thing is, I rarely drink, even when I am stressed, but when I do drink it is usually with friends, and I looked forward to it the most when I am stressed. Mutual stress is usually what enables my friends and I to actively schedule time to meet for drinks.
I think it is the combination of nursing something for a few hours and knowing that I can be with those people nursing that same drink for those few hours. It is guaranteed social contact, and for an introvert like me, that is probably not too unhealthy. There are not enough dogs in my sphere to love on every day, or enough small children to hug me around my kneecaps. There are drinks, though, and I can spare ten dollars for that here and there.
But today. Today is a bad day.
Things feel off and out of sorts. I know an anxiety-panic attack is brewing, and I want to prevent it, or control when it happens, but I know I cannot, which makes it worse.
I am tired, but not the sleepy kind of tired, although I would love to sleep. I am exhausted physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. It is a weird way to feel consistently.
I know it is my anxiety and whatever chronic pain I still have skittering around from my car accident. My anxiety likes to make use of the pain channels my car accident created last year, or so I am beginning to deduce. And today, I am in a lot of pain, so today is a bad day.
My head and neck hurt like they did when I had a concussion and whiplash, and I feel a little like the world is tilting on its axis, or maybe I am.
My shoulder hurts where my trapezius muscle spasm was. My whole left arm aches and throbs down to my thumb, where I sprained part of my hand.
My left ankle has traded off different pain feelings today - sometimes it is electric (which I know is nerve pain) and sometimes today it has throbbed and ached. That should be more tendon/ligament, but despite my sprain, avulsion fracture, and mild fraying, it is still objectively stable, so that too has to be a different form of nerve pain or the anxiety. Other times, like last night it is a sharp, stabbing pain only when walking and then it is gone.
Do you know what I do when days are bad? I like to buy things. This, of course, is not a healthy habit either, for myself or for my budget.
I do not buy clothes, though. I buy books. I buy music. I hunt for movies.
My budget is tight, so I have gotten much better. Where once bookstores and places like Best Buy used to be traps, now I scan the upcoming releases and plot out which ones I want and which ones I can live without; which ones I have time to acquire, and which may need to be bought closer to release.
I sold a lot of my books and movies this summer and fall for things like gas money when my budget was bare, before my second job. Now, I have a different kind of obsession. I pay attention more to what comes out when - whether in theaters or home release - and I weigh my options.
What has not changed is I still go to the movies alone. I also go to bookstores alone. Even when I am not buying anything, bookstores are still comforting. They feel familiar and their scent remains unchanged. Movie theaters are much the same feeling, but I do not have the same time to spend in them between my two jobs.
I suppose there was no larger point to writing this piece than to say that, today, I am having a bad day. My whole body hurts. I have been taking ibuprofen in excess of 2000mgs a day for a couple of weeks now. Some days, it helps, but on days like today, it has done nothing, and tears prickle at the corners of my eyes trying to move past the pain and the anxiety and the anxiety that pain creates, and the vicious cycle that swirls around as that snake eats its tail forever.
But, I know when I go home that I have a few newer books waiting for me to open them, or movies asking to be watched for the 12th time. I know that I can turn on an album and just exist in the bad.
Having a bad day does not demand I do anything about it. That is what I am trying to learn. People keep thinking that there is something you can do about it. There are doctors and medication, all of which I have and am thankful for, but there are just some days when having those things makes no difference and it is going to be a bad day, even if I cry for God to take it from me.
Even in the bad, though, books are written.
Even in the bad, films are made.
Even in the bad, songs are recorded.
Sometimes, the point of those things is to be there in the bad. Sometimes, the bad makes them better.
