The Mattress

Have you ever had to replace your old mattress with a new one? How did you know it was time? I know when I wake up, and, as soon as I move the first muscle, I feel like I’m 100 years old. I mean no offense to centenarians, of course. Maybe they feel limber and well-rested every morning, but I’m waking up finding it painful to move. My joints are stiff and my neck feels like it’s been pushed down into my shoulders. At night I find myself rolling from side to side trying to find the right spot—the right position—so my body will relax. I fluff and exchange pillows until I can get comfortable. Kind of like a cat that turns in circles and paws at the material of its bed before nestling in. None of it works though. I can’t get comfortable.

It’s one thing to feel that way all night. It’s another to feel that way all day. I feel that way all day. So I recently purchase of a new mattress, and it easily solved the problem at night. I don’t know how to solve the problem during the remaining 24 hours.

It’s an unease. I cannot shake it. Some days it is more noticeable than others, and approaching my work at a frantic pace is helpful, albeit exhausting. At a certain point, my will and my brain just wear out and I’m left at a loss.  Sometimes I stand in the middle of whatever room I’ve paced into, immobile. It’s not like walking into a room and then forgetting what you went there for. This is just moving into a space and standing there. It’s a feeling of anticipation as if something is going to happen, or if something should happen, or maybe I’m supposed to make something happen, but I don’t know what that something is. No idea. My brain bounces back and forth between logical thinking and not being able to hold a thought at all.

I don’t really know what to share with you beyond this.  I don’t cry every single day like I used to. So that’s good, right? But the vacuum still exists, and I guess it creates an anxiety. So my treatment for this anxiety continues to be work, meditation, solitude, and friends. If it’s really bad, it’s medication. I try to make that my last resort, but I’m not ashamed to say that sometimes it’s the only way to keep moving forward. I do try, however, to talk myself through the anxiety first.

I was driving the other day and felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. I don’t know where it came from, and I made the decision that I was just going to talk myself through it. I tried to retrace my steps and see what might have caused it and I just thought it through rationally. I took deep breaths, and told myself that there was no rational foundation for being anxious at that particular moment. I tried to be very present in what I was doing, which was just driving to the grocery store. I was able to convince myself that there wasn’t a logical foundation for that stress at that moment. Much to my surprise, the anxiety disappeared.

It’s not always that simple. At least I’m sleeping better on that new mattress.

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