There are two types of people - those who come into a room and say, “Well, here I am!” and those who come in and say, “Ah, there you are.” ~ Frederick L. Collins
Maria was agonizing. Not about anything in particular; that would make too much sense. At least, this was her thinking. In her mind, right now, it made sense to agonize about a particular something. But just agonizing, well, that didn’t make sense. She was stuck in her own head, and that was not a comfortable place to be. There were no couches to lay on, for one thing, and the people she was likely to encounter were typically abusive, telling her in no uncertain terms the things she could not do, could not attempt, could not fathom in her limited experience. Nope, it was not the place you would like to visit, Maria’s head. Try Chicago: that’s a nice place to visit.
Over-thinking was the root of Maria’s problems. At least, this is what she thought when she thought about it, which was all the time. She thought she thought too much. Maria had a friend, Petra, who she thought felt too much too deeply. Thinking too much and feeling too much were not the same thing, Maria thought. They’d had conversations about this, Maria and Petra, unresolved conversations, about what the question “What do you think about [fill in the blank]” really meant. To Maria, the question was completely clear: what is going through your mind about whatever topic. It was a rational question, and Maria craved rationality. It made sense. Petra was forever arguing with her about what she thought, daring her to replace “what do you think about [fill in the blank]?” with “what do you feel about [fill in the blank]?.” Maria resisted, of course, or she thought she resisted. Maybe one part of her resisted. The other part of her took that thought and twisted it into a series of other thoughts that then drifted around her partially conscious mind, flitting in and out of her head and more or less inappropriate times.
11:52 am on a Wednesday morning was one of those times. Maria told herself she did not have time to agonize right now, at 11:52 am on a Wednesday morning. There were things to do, jobs to get done. Agonizing was not on the list. To attempt to stop herself from agonizing, Maria tried to keep her mind occupied with tasks. Make a shopping list. Figure out how best to sew a kitchen curtain. Think of the lyrics to a song. Get out of this headspace.
‘As if it was ever that easy’ was the thought that sent her into her current spiral of agonizing. Maria was experienced enough with her habits of agonizing to recognize its hallmarks: doubt and worry (she could never claim it was unfounded worry—why was that?), a bit of the victim (life was often a series of trials for her –why was that?), a hefty dose of what her spiritual books called the ego. It was her head after all. Of course she should be the star of her own dramas, she thought, with characteristic self-awareness. But that was not her problem right now, she thought. Her problem was that she was agonizing. And if she was agonizing, she was paralysed from doing anything except agonizing. So, Maria thought, she should pinpoint the cause of her agonizing.
She got as far as remembering that several of her colleagues had abruptly stopped talking when she approached them during yesterday’s coffee break. Yes, Maria thought, suddenly feeling confident in the source of her agonizing. She was agonizing because of them, because clearly she had done something to piss them off. Now if she could only figure out what it was that would cause them to ignore her. They must know something, she thought. She would have to ask around and find out what she had done to be subject to this kind of behaviour from people she thought were her friends. Whatever she had done to make them not like her, she could fix, Maria thought. She would just need to figure out how to fix it, she thought.
Why was she always doing this to herself, she wondered. It can’t be hard to think of something other than how miserable you make people, the voice in her head chided her. Of course, if you did do something wrong, you’ll have to figure out what it was and make emends. How would she do that, she thought, her mind quickly jumping back to the fact of her being the one to be blamed for whatever else was going on. It had to come back to her, she just knew it.
Was turmoil like this in everyone’s head? Why was it in hers? Why couldn’t she shut it off? Maria tried to change her thoughts. She tried to make her thoughts reflect what she wanted to have happen, she really did. One time she had even tried to make a vision board, one of those gimmicks that she had heard could help her get where she wanted to be in life. It had seemed easy – at least the cutting out of pictures part. She took the exercise very seriously – she always took herself seriously – and for ten whole days made every conscious effort to try to think about what she wanted to achieve in her life. She thought about how she didn’t want to have to worry about money and how she would be happy if only she lost ten pounds. She thought about other things, too, but those were the big ones. So when the weight failed to disappear of its own accord and she went into overdraft, she decided that the whole vision board idea did not make sense and that she was, as per usual, foolish for thinking she could change things. It didn’t make sense after all.
