I am the Queen of Dumb Anxiety

There are 44 more days in 2025 to get through.

It's time to formalize my morning and evening routines.

While I have always had stuff to do to start the day, and also end it (like everyone else in the world), it can be somewhat fluid which is ok.

But when I really need extra stability, it's time to make and print my routine checklists.

And follow them exactly.

Every day.

I did this for an entire year in 2006- that was a bad year.

I was not ok for any of it but the stable formal structure of beginning and ending the day helped tremendously. It acts like a brace to get through the days.

This isn't something that needs to go on forever, but it's good to get really formal about it in hard times.

I don't like to have to think or remember stuff, and also I'm lazy so I have to make everything as simple as possible, and doing prep work makes everything a lot easier to handle. Especially because I get overwhelmed very easily, everything will fall out of my brain, and I will just shut down.

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Kayak season is over.

My body started to feel it.

If I don't get enough HARD physical exercise, and if I eat worse than usual for a couple of days, I really feel it. 

I need to be careful and keep in good physical shape.

Hard physical exercise (low impact, I care about my joints) is absolutely necessary to help regulate my nervous system, which is so fried and fragile even with all the self-care I take.

So now that I can't go on the water all the time, it's time to resume Crossrope and also get back to the pool. Crossrope, no prob, I started up again last week, I do my workouts at home. Easy.

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The pool........ well, I am the Queen of Dumb Anxiety.

I go to a pool in my neighborhood; it is a 20 minute walk.

I have had my membership for many years.

Over the last couple of years, I have only gone sporadically, which gives me anxiety and guilt because I'm paying $51 for it every month. (I thought that was a lot until I heard how much other people were paying for their pools, so I feel a lot better, it's cheap.) I hate wasting money on things I never use.

But also I love the pool and I need to swim so I just left it.

My pool is a Jewish pool, and sometime last year, maybe late 2023 they got really scared with all the news stuff and implemented a new door authentication system.  It is a bluetooth app on the phone.

Back when it was finally ready, I set it up and wasn't going, so I never used it.

And the longer time went on, the more anxious I got about being able to get into the building.

And it turned into a growing mental wall of anxiety about going.

Which is really stupid but there it is.

So this past Friday I decided I need to get past this.

I went over to the pool when I knew everyone would be there, during regular daytime hours.

I tried the app.

IT DID NOT WORK.

Someone with a keycard let me in, and I enlisted the help of the extremely nice IT guy.

The stuff he did to fix my app also did not work, and he said they have been having problems.

We ended up having to completely re-install and re-authenticate my app and now it works.

This morning I went to the pool before work, all ready to use the app and the doors were wide open.

I didn't even need it.

..... but at least I know it works, if I go at night, or use the back door, I'll definitely need it.

I guess they don't worry as much in the daytime?

Anyhow my current goal is to get in the pool at least twice a week, which I can reasonably do.

I'll switch that out with my Crossrope workouts and that will keep me in good physical shape.

Which helps ENORMOUSLY when I'm not ok internally.

It's an extremely strange feeling to feel awful emotionally but feel amazing physically.

Very strange.