By way of a caveat: Soon, I shall start posting more regularly. Soon, too, I shall stop whinging about my neurotic monkeys and instead whinge — or perhaps even talk — about something else. Until then, however…
Almost a decade of therapy has given me the tools to be a calmer, less anxious person. If you’ve only met me recently, be grateful for that, and stand in awe of my husband and child who have seen me more freaked out than I get now.
I have become able to plow on thru life’s challenges, and enjoy myself more. I have goals, dreams, and also the ability to be content. I am more ok with change than I have ever been. I like myself most of the time now, and occasionally I see myself across a crowded room and actually feel a bit of love.
All in all, I fall down less and deal with things better than I ever have. I still have bad habits, like excessive guilt, catastrophizing and an over-abundance of shoulds, but I am learning. As before, I try to make sure, when I am not capable of handling something, that I ask for help instead of waiting until the whole city is burning and all I can do is scream and run in circles.
I still, however, am as uncomfortable as always with conflict and drama. Nothing knocks me down harder and keeps me down longer than those two things. The past week has been an exercise in keeping my head above their floodwaters. This time, however, I refuse to let conflict OR drama make me fall back into my bad habits. A freak-out does not validate or prove its source. I cannot let the angst of others lead me to make bad decisions.
For my own self preservation, therefore, I am tackling issues (that are ALWAYS smaller than their created brouhaha) pragmatically, not allowing myself to be caught on fire, and hoping that no one else gets burned in the process. I wish happiness and contentment for everyone I love, but cannot be responsible for it. All I can do is make myself happy and hope that being a more pleasant person to be around, and a good psychological role model, will help those around me (or away from me) be happy, too.
May everyone find their happy place.

If you must wink, save it for joking occasions, and play it up big. At least then it will not come across as smarmy. Any wink is meant to create a knowing connection between two people, so if it is done in response to a joke, and is plainly hokey and visible to onlookers, it will not leave the winkee stranded with you in a non-consensual wink-relationship. Any other type of winking should be done only if the risk is completely understood: If you are not confident that your wink is going to be welcomed, or are at all unsure of your ability to wink without looking like the guy down the bar that keeps awkwardly licking his lips whenever you look over to see if he is still staring at you, and who holds on little too long when he shakes your hand, just don’t do it. Leave the winks, the matress-mobiles, the rib bone marrow sucking, and the cries of “papi” to those who wield them well, and join the rest of us in laughing at the Sarah Palins of the world.

