This week was one of the busiest weeks of my life...but not for the reason one may think.
Let's back track to when I was 8.
I used to find sleepovers to be an unbearable inconveniences that plagued the pathway through childhood. Wait, let me clarify. I loved having my friends stay at my house, hell one of my friends stayed over almost every single weekend for multiple day stretches. The idea of sleeping in close vicinity to a pal was not the dilemma. The problem was when they wanted me to sleep in close vicinity to them, whilst also being not in my own home.
Burn the idea. Kill it. Throw it away.
There are a few key feelings that stick with you and for some reason one of my big ones for me, was the growing panic I felt at a sleepover prior to the age of 11 (Oddly, once we moved to New Hampshire that fear evaporated for me....)
I could be having a whale of a time in the daylight but as the sun started to set it was like a mass was forming in the centre of my chest. Another key trigger was typically when my friends fathers would return from work, a site typically unseen in your standard post-school play date. No matter how lovely a man, his presence signalled that things were different. At this point I would normally excuse myself to the bathroom to have a little deep breathing session, hoping rapid breaths would squish out the flames in my chest.
Dinner would roll around and my thoughts would be on what my family were eating in my absence and suddenly I had FOMO for like....a lamb chop with my Mum and brother.
I would feel sick to my stomach, or my head would hurt and my friend and their family would look on whilst I cried. I would call my Mum typically asking if she could bring me more things, thinking somehow having my hairbrush with me would make me feel better.
But it never did.
She would drop my things off and before she made it back home I was ringing to let her know she forgot me.
Get me the hell out of here.
The relief I felt as I skipped away from my frowning friend and into the trusty Holden Apollo ready to be on my way home was a joy like no other.
My Mum never seemed to understand, but she always came to reluctantly collect her dramatic child none the less.
Now.
Cut to present day.
On Sunday, something in my brain flipped. Suddenly I felt that same mass in my chest that I used to feel as a child and I couldn't shake the feeling. Dan and Norman (human and dog of my life) looked on in confusion as I sobbed uncontrollably. Why? God knows!
I felt stressed and squashed and confused and like everything from today onwards was cold and pointless. This feeling mirrored the way I felt as a child in a foreign home past sunsets, yet I was curled up on my own couch this time.
On Monday, Dan insisted we both played hooky from work to take me to the dr. He hand delivered me and sat in the waiting room in case I somehow shattered.
That evening I sat with my friends in a local Nando's crying into my Peri-Peri chicken. We laughed about how random this personality transplant was and after 3 hours of chatting I was feeling the mass in my chest shrink ever so much.
I decided this was how I was going to attack this feeling (well in addition to the lovely mental healthcare plan my GP had started me on of course, go to therapy folks!)
Every day this week I was on the go.
Dinners with friends, work out classes, the movies, lengthy dog walks and sunset decompressing (side note: Norman was so fucking done with how much walking he had to do this week he physically gave up one afternoon and I had to carry him all the way home because his little legs were done with my bullshit).
My friends sent me flowers to boost my mood or hand delivered me lunches and I confided in my boss that I'm not sure what was happening, but I think I temporarily lost my mind.
I'm not normally one to lean on others when I am feeling sad. I tend to become a bit of a fortress of solitude but it turns out this week others is exactly what I needed.
I'm not sure what caused this week of misery, but it was a lovely reminder that no matter how irrational my thoughts are, there are people in my life who are willing to swoop in and save me from the theoretical sadness sleepover at the drop of a hat.
On a much more joyous note, the Philadelphia Eagles (or more importantly my main guys Jason Kelce and Jordan Mailata because like sure, sure Pats forever but also....I love those guys!) have released the first song of this years Christmas album so it's time to start jingling those bells and counting down the seconds until my Christmas tree will be in up (let's be real...it's probably already up)
