The movie was Internal Affairs starring Richard Gere and Andy Garcia. I was in the theatre with my then boyfriend when I suddenly felt my heart begin to race, I was sweating and could barely catch my breath. Out of the blue I felt the urge to run out the door, which I did, as I quickly pulled my blouse out from inside of my pants and got rid of the then in style shoulder pads that were strategically tucked under my bra straps. (I´m still not sure where the american-football player look came from). I felt scared…I thought I was going to die.
At the hospital, after giving me a read out of my perfectly normal vital signs the doctor suggested that I take some Valium. In shock, I asked him what on earth for…and he told me that not only was I not going to die…but in not so many words, that whatever I had just felt was brought on by my own head. I had a panic attack.
The reason? I was told that I was afraid to die.
For years I was convinced that death scared me, and that this was the source of my anxiety. I became afraid of getting on planes, going to crowded places or events, riding in elevators, standing in line at the supermarket (yeah, weird I know) and driving over bridges.
I can´t say when, but at some point I realized that by letting fear get the best of me I would end up isolating myself from the world and that wasn´t something I was willing to accept. I began to walk, take yoga classes, learn to breathe and find my inner peace. I slowly faced my fears, got on planes, stuck to the new elevators (still don´t ride old ones), went to some events (still avoid concerts), spent hours at the supermarket and drove over bridges with no problem. The panic attacks kept coming.
What was going on? I was getting over the fear of dying….but I was still afraid of…li.ving!
Enjoying life was a foreign concept to me. I had grown so accustomed to having something to complain about that I couldn´t see the forrest through the trees. I was rushing through life at an accelerated pace that was driving me over the edge.
During my first high risk pregnancy, at age 22, I would sit and think of the songs I´d like to sing to my son when he was born. In bed for a little over 7 months other than picking out his name and writing it over and over (yes, I have some obsessive traits) I finally came up with a song. Beautiful Boy by John Lennon. It was fitting. Life lessons in the form of a song for my first born…little did I know that the lesson was to be learned…by me only many years later.
“L-I-F-E is what happens to you while you´re busy doing other things”….
What other things can be more important than learning to live?
Over the years, I´ve realized that people like me tend to postpone the whole living thing waiting for an event or moment in time to happen in order to really enjoy ourselves. We wait to have enough money, we wait until the kids are older, we wait until we get that promotion at work we´ve been waiting for and we even wait for seasons to change. It´s almost as if we feel that we don´t deserve to receive all the good things life has to give us. (or at least not until we´ve “complied” with pre-requisites like in college).
I once read that “How we spend our days, is how we spend the rest of our lives” and it scared me. I was in bed feeling like crap and wondered, is this how I want to spend the rest of my L-I-F-E? Fortunately that little voice in my head said “heck no” and I started to plan my days from then on. I´m not even close to there yet, but I´ve gone from mall outtings to yoga classes, from watching tv to reading more, from chatting with random friends to having meaningful conversations with my close friends, from teling my kids what to do to listening to what they have to say, from looking straight ahead to stopping on occasion to see what´s on each side of me.
.I don´t think of this lifetime as a dress rehearsal, this is IT. This is the only chance I´ll get to make it the way that makes me happy, and now is the only time I´ll have to do it so…
I smile alot more now…
I listen more…
I understand and accept that things won´t always go my way but that´s OK…
I don´t complain, as I know that things can always be worse…
I appreciate the gifts I´ve been given like my health, the health of my children, my friends…
I take my time to do important things that I had no patience for before like untangling my daughters hair…
I play silly games with my kids and enjoy their laughter…
I close my eyes as I feel the wind on my face and think that it´s a good day…
My anxiety has gone away, and I continue to learn how to live…
L – Living
I – it
F – fully
E – everyday…
Are you?
