The other day my boyfriend sent me a text, which read

“Do you want to go to the gym later? I’ll wait for you” 

Bless his heart for being so considerate. It had already been a morning of classes, and I was on my way to work, so he would have been waiting awhile. Unsure, I responded “let me think about it for ten minutes”.

In that moment, I wanted to say yes. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t commit! Just because I wanted to go in the moment that he asked doesn’t necessarily mean that I would be just as ready hours from then.

Anxiety is straight up annoying sometimes for that very reason: because having anxiety means that your emotions, and the way you see the world, can change on a whim. I felt good in that moment, but how was I going to feel six hours from then?

Was I going to eat well, take care of myself, and feel well enough to go? Or could something possibly go wrong? What if he waited for me and close to the end of the day I felt I couldn’t handle it?

Anxiety is an adventure like that; you never know where it will take you. And I can’t make decisions based on how I feel at any given time, but instead I have to play the game of predicting how I’ll feel later.

This is why I can be so flaky sometimes. I make plans with the best of intentions, but then when the plans I’ve made finally come around, I’m not feeling the same. Normal Jen makes plans, Anxiety Jen bails on them.

Not to say that I am not capable of keeping plans, because I am. As long as I eat well, get enough sleep, and don’t take on too many tasks… but that is so much easier said than done!

That night, I didn’t end up going. I predicted that after such a long day of not stopping, I would be too tired. I was right. Hey – I must be getting good at this!

I wonder if “is able to guess in what state of mind I will be in later based on certain variables” looks good on a resume…
Thanks for reading!