I’m home right now, not meeting a hero. I have two unmet living musical heroes & I am not going to meet them.
I made excuses to Shawn:
What if I say something stupid? What if I don’t say anything at all and look weird? I don’t like cameras, won’t he be offended if I don’t want a selfie? Plus how do I avoid everyone else’s cameras? I don’t have anything to wear, my clothes don’t fit right. My haircut is terrible. I don’t have many heroes left and want to keep him. What if he falls in love with me at first sight and the only resolution is a duel? What if I panic and say that, as a person with invisible eyebrows, I have always quite appreciated his eyebrow game? What if I wear Shalimar and he’s allergic to Shalimar and he dies?
But the fundamental reason is this (aside from the heroes thing): I’m an anxiety bomb over something as simple as getting the mail. I’m honestly afraid that, if I were ever to have a heart attack or a stroke, I’d be too embarrassed to call for help & incur the expense, in case I was wrong. In case I had to bother the dispatchers and care providers.
I wanted Shawn to enjoy his morning hanging out with an artist he loves. I didn’t want him to be distracted by concerns about my anxiety. Because he would worry, because he loves me.
So, I didn’t want to meet my hero, and I successfully did not meet him.
But I thought, since this is happening now, that it’s a good time to demonstrate how chronic anxiety can be a third party in a relationship. Fourth, if you also have depression. So when I consider going somewhere, doing something, I have to consider whether the Black Dog and Chev Chelios would also be welcome/tolerated by all involved.
That’s why Shawn met Ice Cube today and I stayed home and browsed for Chev gifs.
When it comes to this stuff, you kinda have to act counterintuitively, and force yourself to do that which you’d rather not do. Trust me, I know. I would not shit you, Bel.
I tend to faint when I try that.