Stick It

It occurred to me last week, as I was lying on a massage table in Chinatown with no less than 30 needles stuck in my abdomen and feet, that I am a searcher. I am always looking for some kind of self improvement. And, in that special way of mine, I've become addicted to it.

I haven't always been like  that. I spent most of my teens trying to be someone else and my twenties were spent searching for nothing but a snack and a drink and, when motivation stuck me, a boyfriend. But somewhere before I hit 30, suddenly I realized I wasn't at all who I wanted to be, and I started to search for myself. And suddenly I find that I can't stop.

This time, I am searching for relief. For the last four years, I've had bad anxiety. I always had anxiety, but I hit some kind of crossroads wherein the end of my drinking (which had always numbed my fears with a blurry haze of hilarity and horror) combined with  one traumatic experience (bed bugs-- truly awful) followed by another (the death of my beloved friend Maggie) just brought me to some sort of breaking point. I broke down under the weight of it.

You're such a pinhead.

So, barely able to function, I went on meds. I regret it. I am sure not everyone does, but I was too out of touch with my health to recognize the side effects as they built up-- the nightsweats, the weight gain, the other things I won't get into. I wasn't educated about my health, and I just think that you are your own advocate for health-- so do the research. If you take the meds, take them-- but do the research first.

Let's be honest though- what bugged me most was the weight gain. 20 stubborn pounds that, nine months after coming off the meds, won't come off, no matter how I diet, exercise and yes, even starve myself (in one misguided exercise of futility).

So here I am, in Chinatown. Pledging to drink herbal tea (that tastes like poo) every night, with the promise that the blockages will be removed and I will, in fact, find the calm I am searching for. I might even lose the weight, my herbalist said, as my endocrine system gets righted. For that, lady, you can stick whatever you like wherever you like.

And here I go, continuing to search. I never could have predicted the way my life has turned out, so who knows-- you never know what I might find.