I haven’t written since Sunday because nothing happened, and then when something worthy of writing about did happen, I was too depressed and embarrassed to write about it. But I figure what use is a social anxiety blog if I’m not going to write about falling backward as well as moving forward?
My boyfriend took Thursday off as my Valentine’s Day present. We were supposed to go to a local farmer’s market in the morning and then St. Augustine afterward. We also needed to do laundry because Aaron’s parents have been home the entire week, which makes it impossible for me to do laundry at home as I’m so nervous about going into their house while they’re home (we share the laundry machine with them–they live directly underneath us). So we woke up and had a nice breakfast, then we gathered up Aaron’s work clothes and went to the coin laundry down the street. He spent the time we waited for it to finish playing the Game Boy, and I spent the time trying desperately to not seem impolite as I deflected all the laundry woman’s small talk advances.
After the laundry finished, we took it home and then left for the farmer’s market, which I had found online and desperately wanted to go to. I love farmer’s markets, because there are so many people around that don’t necessarily want to interact with me, and there’s so much fresh fruit and vegetables, and it’s such a nice atmosphere. We finally found the market. Alas, I had forgotten that it was a THURSDAY MORNING. No one was there except for the vendors. All I could think about was that there would be no one to deflect the attention of the vendors off of me, and they would all want to speak to me and try to press their wares on me (although logically I knew this wasn’t true), and I freaked out. I had a full-blown panic attack; I couldn’t breathe and I was shaking and crying and begging Aaron to take me away from it all because I couldn’t handle it, and he was trying to convince me to go in and face my fear but I just COULDN’T. Finally Aaron extracted a promise from me to go on Saturday afternoon, when there would be more buyers around and I could gradually face my fear of it instead of jumping in headfirst without any preparation whatsoever.
We started heading towards St. Augustine but then his ex-wife called with some bitchy news, and that on top of the residual panic attack emotions threw me over the top and I freaked out and told Aaron to just get me home, I didn’t want to go to St. Augustine, I didn’t want to do anything, I just wanted to sleep and have the day be over because I was too stupid to enjoy it the way I wanted to. All our plans had been screwed up and I didn’t want to deal with it. I don’t know why I can’t just shake things off and move on with my life, rather than concentrating on how things should be. I am so incredibly envious of people that can shift plans and enjoy themselves just as much as if nothing had even happened.
We went home, I calmed down a bit and Aaron calmed me down enough for me to agree to go to a puppy shop nearby that allows you to play with the pups in enclosed pens. One huuuuge dog cuddled with me for a good ten minutes and a tiny little pug cheered me up considerably, he was so cute and hyper. He was only eight or nine weeks old and already knew how to fetch! I would toss the ball and he would run, slam into the wall, grab the ball, and actually bring it back. Then Aaron took me to Goodwill and I found a wonderful skirt that actually fit. It’s rare for me to find clothes that fit me AND that I like at Goodwill, so that cheered me up as well. Then we went to the mall to eat at the place we ate on our first date. Alas, afterward we went to Books-a-Million and Aaron spent an entire freaking hour engrossed in some stupid roleplaying book while I tried to entertain myself with a book of Pulitzer prize winning pictures. Finally I got pissed off again and went to find him and told him that my gift was supposed to be time spent together, not time spent on opposite ends of a bookstore. So we went home. I passed out on the couch because I was so tired. Aaron played video games. And that was it.
It was an awful day, all-around. And now tomorrow I have to go to the farmer’s market like I promised, and I really don’t think I can handle it.
