Drivers Driving Me Crazy

I've made no attempt at hiding my PTSD from the accident and some moments are far worse than others, but these drivers down here in sunny Florida are driving me crazy. I was once told that most drivers expect a last minute merge and cutoff, so that's how you should just do it because it's already anticipated...um no. 

I'm overly cautious because I have a huge fear of the sideswipe. Blind spots freak me out and the speed with which people drive around is concerning in general. Since I've been driving to St. Pete daily for the work week, I've become even more sensitive but also more used to how crazy it can get.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend I don't look at my phone while I'm driving ever. Besides needing to be a Spotify DJ and moments at stops lights of boredom, I try very much not to mess with my phone in transit. What concerns me now, is how much cell phones are just a constant in every car and how now one seems to pay attention to what is around them, but rather has phone in hand, just driving along. I'm not exaggerating that it's almost every car and that you'll find it with me too.

Yesterday on my way home on the Bayside bridge I saw this white sedan feverishly tailgating in stop and go traffic. Swerving to get between and in front of everyone and noticeably pissing off drivers everywhere,  when I finally passed her she was texting on her phone. It was crazy, but I sighed to myself, "Of course!" She was already driving recklessly and so naturally, let's add the cell phone into the mix.

I can't speak for anyone else in terms of surviving a traumatic car accident, but I am just very sensitive to all aspects of the commute, along with traffic and driving woes. It is a bitter diatribe overall, but also just a question of safety. When my daughter is in the car with me I'm even more overly cautious, because it just freaks me out how crazy drivers can be these days.

I grew up in places made of small towns, country roads, and then mountain roads. This was before cell phones were really a commodity, let alone commonplace in a car. Oregon has distracted driving laws. My dad will pull over when I call, tell me he can't talk for another hour, then safely call me back at home. New York has something similar I think.

Don't get me wrong, Michael Scott said it best as Florida being a "Colorful, lawless swamp," but I've never seen so many accidents and had never really been in one, until we moved here.

Now, I learned how to drive in south Florida, off of I-95 near one of America's most notably "dangerous" stretches of highway. It was a lot like that iconic scene from Clueless where they end up on the freeway freaking out:

My husband never understood why I drove so defensively like, "kill or be killed" on the Oregon highways until we moved to Tampa and one day had the a-ha moment of "Oh, you had to outwit all these psycho drivers! I see now!"

It doesn't help that we have so many snow birds either. To their credit, we love what our part time residents do for the Florida economy and we appreciate it, but it's confusing and frustrating when the locals need to be places. These drivers are driving me crazy!

It seriously stresses me out and gives me anxiety to the point where I will go out of my way to go around certain trigger areas or areas that I just can't deal with. After driving in Oregon and then coming back to Florida, and I just so happen to actually know the majority of the pedestrian, driving and even cycling laws, I usually have the above Zoolander reaction regularly.

More often than not it is all maddening. I try to just breathe and take it down a notch but these drivers drive me crazy. I'm sure I drive people nuts too, but I seriously wish that before we enter the era where the cars just drive for us, we could all actually learn to drive safely. However, after all this I have come to the conclusion that Florida may be just playing it fast and loose with the definition of "safely."

Buckle up readers!

Take It Down A Notch

I'm unsure as if it has to do with my being short and sassy, but I'm also naturally loud. It has gotten me in trouble on more than one occasion, especially in earlier years of cell phone usage. Sometimes I feel like my inner anxiety is even loud, like SHOUTING, and I just have to breathe and take it down a notch. At 34 I'm still "using my inside voice" in more ways than one!

Above is Ross doing his "quiet down thing," and I feel like I bring this out this reaction in most people. Learning to reign it in mentally, has been a battle all on it's own. I now understand that those moments where my anxiety spins me out of control are kind of like relapses, but as I get better with maintenance, the relapses get less bad in change.

What's weird for me is that I feel like in the midst of the chaos I can handle myself relatively well, but when things get calm and then I hit a speed bump, it's like a red alert. See Michael Scott:

I organize to the point of compulsiveness often, when it comes to budget, bills, scheduling, reservations for things, planning for life, play dates, routines, chores, and everything else in between. Sometimes when bigger things tend to surprise me, it is then I become unhinged. In another aspect, if I'm already struggling with one thing that I'm maintaining my energy with and you throw me another curve ball, you're likely to find me with a black eye. I'm anything but prepared.

In the wake of turning 34 and saying goodbye to my beloved boot camp I felt down a peg or two. I was personally taken down a notch. My birthday was fine, but I was stressed in general, I can't lie. We have tax stuff coming up, bills, car maintenance, and a lot going on for me personally so I was trying so hard to just push through. Yesterday was the beginning of some deep conversational type stuff for life plans and it all just really hit me.

I went from 0 to 60 in nothing flat and was over-dramatizing and just super upset. Goals and plans are important to me. What can I say? I'm extremely Monica:

  

I reached out to my tribe to get all the different sides of the main question I always ask, "Am I allowed to be upset about this?" After careful consideration and reflection, and important opinions, I had to really take it down a notch. My first instinct is always the worst, that's why I never send my first typed response for a heated question via text. My first answer is always, sassy, snarky, and rude. When I put the phone down and take a step back I can answer...the less Anxious Alison way, which is usually nicer.

Later I further investigated the scope of my anxieties and then asked the questions out loud that I needed answered and listened to each response. Active listening is no joke. It is hard! I didn't yell in response, I didn't "freak out," I didn't lose my temper, I just took it all in.

Can we call this all growth? Sometimes handling all of this makes me want to hide and color in my pillow fort. Sometimes I feel like a bad ass full time working mom ready to take on the world! Most of the time it just makes me tired.

Last night after all of this self-inflicted emotional turmoil, and knowing I had a really good weekend ahead of me, I just read Fancy Nancy with my daughter and hugged and kissed her a lot. I breathed a breath of grateful and went to bed. How's that for taking it down a notch?

Much like age has taught me to quiet my voice in every circumstance necessary, age has taught me to handle my anxiety appropriately. Well, age and therapy. I can organize and plan and over-plan or over-book but nothing really prepares you for life's crazy changes, especially when you're already overwhelmed. 

My best tool is taking it down a notch...all of it, all the time, in every avenue. Whether it's my anxiety, my anger, my attitude, my stress, if you can just take a step back, it makes all the difference. I'm seriously starting to relate to the Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson classic, Anger Management now:

It's something that requires attention, mindfulness and it takes a lot of practice. Say Goosfraba if you must! But in all the mania of the past couple weeks, it hasn't hurt to take it down a notch! So down a notch, here I come to embrace the weekend! You all should too!

Sorry Not Sorry Is Truly An Epic Phrase

There are only a few phrases in terms of slang that I actually enjoy. For instance the phrase "Throw shade at," is a slight against God and all that is unholy in any grammar usage. I'm also not that big of a fan of "Bae," it just feels like someone forgot the other "b" in "babe."

However, the whole "sorry not sorry" phenomenon, is actually quite insightful, or so I think.

We go through life learning to apologize at an early age. "Say you're sorry!," become the mantra of mothers. We are supposed to teach accountability right? But as women, the whole sorry thing is just another level.

With all the women's empowerment movements the above quote from one of my favorite famous humans, Amy Poehler, is beyond perfect. Women are taught to be sorry for, being loud, especially if it means raising our voice to a man. We are made to apologize for having children "inconveniencing" other walks of life. We have to apologize for dressing provocatively or being "too sexy" and therefore attracting the "wrong kind of attention." We apologize too much, in my opinion but to sum up, "I'm sorry, I'm NOT sorry."

The reason this phrase is both easily thrown around and very appropriate is because you can feel regret that you aren't feeling badly about something you are "supposed" to feel badly about. Think about this: should we feel bad that we stood up for ourselves? Sorry, not sorry. Should we feel badly that we left a situation where we were treated poorly? Sorry, not sorry. And should we feel bad that we say "no" to doing things that "don't spark joy?" Sorry, I'm not sorry.

I started thinking about all of this in reaction to an argument with my six year old. She is 6 going on 16 and said something sarcastic. She gets her sass from me unfortunately. Anyway, I sent her to her room to cool down and feel her feelings and then she made a rude, hurtful remark. So, I took away some precious privileges and cracked down. In effect, I'm sorry that she is upset, but I'm not sorry I disciplined her. She needs to learn respect, even when she feels like things are unfair. Most of life is unfair, but we don't get to be horrible to people just because we are having a bad day, or at least that is the lesson I hope to convey.

I also had the sorry, not sorry, thing come up this morning. In most cases of parental life, weekends are packed. This was the first one in a long time that wasn't completely booked with everything and where we could all just decompress. We had a weird couple of weeks too. As mentioned often before, to me, relaxing is a foreign concept. There is always something I "should be doing," and this morning my husband made me stop, and was actually able to stop with me. On a good week, my husband and I have about 16 hours together, and I'm not exaggerating. Days when we can actually just chill, are few and far between.

So this morning, I was sorry that I blew off the "obligatory," but not sorry that I was lazy and binge-watching Hulu with my husband, a pile of pancakes and bacon. Sorry, not sorry. I'm sorry that I don't feel badly that I said no to things that I wasn't feeling happy or calm about. And, sorry but I'm especially not sorry that I didn't fake some social interactions this weekend just so I could feel like I was socially accepted. Sorry not sorry.

As you get older you become more and more unapologetic and it's not always a mean or snarky thing, but once you get mid thirties, you are kind of like, "So this is who I am now." For me, I will do just about anything for a friend who can treat me kindly and not make me feel badly about myself or my life. But, if you are just going to make me feel like crap, sorry, not sorry, you can just head the opposite direction.

And sorry, not sorry; I'm very done feeling sorry for myself. Life is hard. All you can do is grow. It's not about being, "so strong," it's not about the "resilience," it's about just living. Didn't Matthew Mcconaughey tell us in the cult classic, Dazed and Confused it's just about "livin," "L-I-V-I-N,?" I think so.

So with all do respect, I am truly sorry I'm not sorry. However I maintain that sometimes that is okay. If I actually cause some harm an owe apologies I'm not just going to be that person who refuses to apologize, but overall, let's just turn the Demi Lovato hit up, and keep L-I-V-I-N!