I May Have Had My First Panic Attack This Week...
Sunday night into Monday morning was a bad time. I slept, but not well. Woke early because I knew I had a lot to do. Monday night to Tuesday, same thing. Last night to today, same thing.

Who invented the work schedule? Who decided 40 hrs was correct? Don't we look around and see a rat trap? Aren't the faces of millions of people pierced and perforated with worry?

My friend the school teacher? Will soon be having three months of downtime. Guaranteed vacation every year? And while I wouldn't relish the opportunity to be surrounded by high school kids five days a week, attempting to bring some kind of order into 30 lives at a time, I could SO get used to the guaranteed vacations.

A few weeks ago, I ran into an old friend. He had a profound effect on my life when I used to work at the post office. He was, and still is, one of the most offbeat people you'll ever meet. He seemed to take nothing serious, including the break-up of his marriage and the public humiliation of an affair gone bad. He made my work environment a clammy, sickening place for a while with his antics, even though he was my friend. All my instincts to dump him like illegal cargo were somehow put on hold. But when I left the post office, I left him and his woes behind. Gladly.

Then a few weeks ago, I went to a restaurant between appointments, and while waiting for my take out order, in he walked and down next to me he sat. We weren't even on the same side of the Hudson River as our old post office. It was like I was looking straight into Peter Pan's face. It blew my mind. After my appointment, I rejioned him at his new house (new to me, anyway). He'd moved over to New Jersey and changed professions--that is, joined his family's business finally. It was hard to imagine him taking the family business serious, but he said he was and he showed me family products with a loopy kind of pride and so I figured he was legit.

But I mention him because he said that one of his children had Ausperger's, which is a kind of autism. It makes for strange behavior, some detatchment, but nothing as severe as Rain Man. He said that he felt like he had it too, surely, which would explain some of the events in his life. Like the self-destructive obsessions which ruined his marriage. Or maybe even it explained his marriage altogether.

Now here I am wondering, do I have Ausperger's? Or am I experiencing life like other people do? Or does anyone? Is every experience always unique? I get obsessed with stuff, but doesn't everyone? I'm getting panicky and losing sleep because I dread the coming day, not because it will be an especially dreadful day, but just because they are fraught with so many possibilities for going wrong. Especially when you have a lot of responsibility. The more things that ride on your shoulders, the more things can fall off and break.

In the children that I counsel, I see components of life that they are missing. Lessons from parents that they are either ignoring, or not being given. Things like taking responsibility, delaying gratification, obeying authority. Things that will make them functional when they are adults. I know this because I'm trying to rebuild my own database in those areas.

So maybe it's not Ausperger's. Maybe it's the rampant desire to extend my childhood into forever. Lay in the bed as long as I want to. Let someone else get the car inspected so they can stop getting tickets from the same cop every morning. Let someone else avoid getting the pink envelope from the car insurance people because they're a week overdue on the payment. Let someone else do the taxes.

I'm so glad for blog, or otherwise known as Pressure Valve 101.

Meanwhile, I got my tape recorded, but like they sing in Floetry, "I'm so scared..."
All I need to do now is get the right kind of plug that can connect earphone jack to mic jack and I'll create an .mp3 file. I may do audioblogger, Saidy. I've thought of it often. Thanks for the suggestion.

Me at 6/16/2004 06:58:00 AM

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