We all have a face we try to show to the world. A version of ourselves we perceive as our best self, the person we want others to see us as. But what happens when that doesn’t line up with what feels comfortable inside? How do we bridge the gap between who we want to be and our default setting?
We all have our quirks. No one is completely normal, meaning that “normal” is more of a fluid target, than a reality state. The question isn’t really whether or not we have idiosyncrasies, but rather, what are each persons unique ones.
I use the plural because, for the most part, no one has just one quirk. What makes us individuals is that each of us has our own particular combination of eccentricities.
One for me is needing to know what to expect. Having an outline for each day, and then filling in the details as I go.
Some people prefer to live life more on a whim. Although I like the idea of living in the moment, without being weighed down by expectations, it doesn’t come easily or even sit comfortably inside me.
Knowing what to expect comes in different shades.
The unknown can be scary, so decreasing that anxiety with a game plan seems to me to be a pretty pro-active idea. No football team goes into a sunday game without a game plan, so why should regular life be different?
As a kid, starting each new school year brought with it the mental terror of innumerable unknowns all wrapped up into the physical discomfort of stomach aches, chest tightness, and spinning fearful thoughts.
To combat this, my parents would go through mental visualization with me to verbalize my walk through the day.
“First you’ll stand out at the bus stop across the street. When the bus comes you will get onto the bus and sit down in an empty seat. When the bus gets to school you will look for the big main doors that all the other kids are walking into, go through that door, and look for room number 4”, and so on.
As I got older, I would have the same nerves before job interviews, first days of internships, first days on new jobs, and the like. Since it helped, I stepped the visualization exercise up a notch and would go directly to the place the day before in order to to find the room I would have to find the next day. This way I would at least cut down on the worry of finding my way there on time, and could free up space to worry about all the other details.
As time went on, I found ways to prepare myself for all types of things. The more I pre-planned, the less I had to decide on the spot.
It’s the same reason I prefer email to phone calls. It gives you time to think about what the other person is asking of you, figure out what you feel comfortable with, and then respond….. all in your own time. Otherwise , you find yourself saying yes, on the spot, to things you immediately regret, or no to things you might have enjoyed if you had a little bit of time to process it.
But back to planning.
I would pre-plan meals for the week when I went shopping so I’d always have what I needed when each meal time arrived. That morphed into pre-making the meals on sunday, so during the week I could just grab a container and have each meal there ready and waiting. Which morphed into eating the same things each day for breakfast, the same thing for lunch, and then the same dinner each day – decreasing the need to try to figure out what I might want each week to make it in advance.
Eventually I wanted to be able to have some wiggle room, so deemed weekends structure-free to allow myself the ability to decide at each meal time what I actually felt like eating. As long as it was from one of the two or three restaurants that I knew I liked and knew what I would always order if I went to.
The process also spread into getting dressed. At first pre-planning the week’s outfits so that I could just do all my ironing at once on sunday. (Sundays becamw busy days.)
But as time went on, deciding ahead of time became its own stress.
So this morphed into always wearing combinations of black and white. My whole work wardrobe consisted of a few pairs of black pants and a few white shirts. In my mind I was a free-spirit mixing and matching, but it allowed my brain freedom from detailed decisions knowing that it would all look equal, blend in, and not be judged by others since how can you go wrong with black and white.
It extended itself into other facets of life as well.
Watching tv in the living room, I always sit on the same spot at the end our couch. I thought this was just a habit, period. Until one day we had company, and they sat in “my spot” to watch tv together.
I could feel the visceral reaction grow within me, from my core, building up to my chest, and into my head. It was like an itch that couldn’t be scratched, a pressure that needed to blow, a breath that couldn’t be caught. I sat uncomfortably somewhere else, so as not to look difficult, until the moment they got up to get something in the other room, and I tried to nonchalantly make my way around the room to reclaim the spot before they returned.
My husband recently shared a great idea – “why don’t we get a new couch with our tax money this year”. Since our current one has been personalized by our dogs with worn spots where they like to climb and chew holes where they were sure their toys must have been trapped and need saving. “Great”, I told him, “as long as it looks and feels exactly the same as our couch now”.
I don’t do change well.
So how does that mesh with a spouse who tends to live in the moment, not look too far ahead, and prefers not being hampered by limitations ? With careful planning.
I call it planned spontaneity.
I usually have, tucked in the back of my brain, options I feel comfortable with for various adventures across places and days. Maybe it’s the boardwalk at Hampton Beach in the summer. Or skating at Rockefeller plaza in the winter. Maybe it’s catching a movie on a Friday. Or going to see a band on a Saturday. Or a basketball game in Boston on a Sunday.
What they all have in common is that they have been pre-scouted and mentally outlined ahead of time.
For each I figure how long it would take to get there, what time we’d have to leave to get home at a good time depending on when the dogs have to eat and what is going on the next day. Find out what places there are to eat around there, check out the menus online to decide what I would order, and decide which two or three feel the most comfortable. An idea of what one might wear to be the most comfortable walking around depending on the weather forecast, and what type of layers to bring in case it gets colder than expected.
I stash mittens and earmuffs in my car all year just in case we end up somewhere outdoors and get chilly. And chapstick and hand lotion in each vehicle since the sensation of dry lips or hands is another mental distraction when you know there is no relief in sight.
Nothing is alone in a vacuum. Every action has possible consequences, and each possible outcome leads in a different direction of next occurances. And all of these algorithms spin in the head of someone with anxiety so that every decision feels like if could potentially affect ripples outward, so we better be proactive and create acceptable future situations by making the “right” decisions right now. No pressure or anything.
But I digress, with my planned spontaneity, it becomes win-win. My husband gets to do something spur of the moment and I can feel like I’m being spontaneous with him. Fun loving and free spirited. The way I want him to think of me. While I can also have some control over knowing what to expect so I can feel comfortable and mentally prepared for what’s to come.
Until the day I realized he had me all figured out.
The details have become fuzzy since it was some time ago, but it went something like this. Saturday morning husband comes up with out of the blue idea for a day trip adventure. I disappear upstairs onto the computer to frantically google the area so that I can know what to expect of the place, how long it will take to get there and back, weather for the day, places to eat in the vicinity, and so on. Husband walks in to screen shot of restaurant menus as I secretly try to decide what I would order at each of the few places I now know I can throw out as “random” possibilities while we’re there.
I freeze trying to review in my my mind a list of explanations that would sound reasonable and sub-loony. He laughs and assures me he never thought I was carefree or unpredictable all of this time anyway. It’s just that now he understands the “how” of my seeming spontaneity against the backdrop of someone who always needs to know what to expect.
Interestingly, being found out, lifted a burden off of me.
I can still enjoy a variety of things to do while being assured I’ll know what to expect whichever of those options comes to fruition. But now I could go through my process without fear of being discovered. What a relief.
As I write this my husband is yelling up to me, asking where I’d like to go for dinner tonight. “Anywhere that sounds good to you”, I reply. “I’m flexible.”…….. “As long as it’s Pizzeria Uno or Plan B Burger Bar.”……. “Oh, and as long as we’re there by 7:00 so that we don’t have to wait, and get back to the dogs by 9:00, watch that netflix movie, and still get to bed by midnight so that I can get up and do my yoga tape early enough that we can eat weekend breakfast together tomorrow, watch our DVR’d shows, and be out of the house by noon so we can be back on time to watch the superbowl”.
“Sounds good”, he replies with a chuckle, “luckily you’re spontaneous”.