The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7b NLT
I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about a woman’s midlife re-evaluation lately. It happens in your late 20’s to late 30’s, and it’s when you really start to question the futility of your repetitive everyday tasks and ask yourself if what you have is what you wanted from your life. It can be a little threatening to the people who love you because it can catalyze some serious change.
I’ve always been a late bloomer, so I’ve only been experiencing this the past couple of years. I was coming to the end of my childbearing years and trying to figure out how much Laura was left outside of making babies, giving birth to them, and feeding them until my already small chest was downright pathetic.
This midlife business (ironic we women hit it early, since we live longer. It’s really more of a First Third of Life Re-evaluation, but that just means we have more time to get it right after our first meltdown) has really made me question as a Christian and as a woman, which standards I’m holding myself to and why.
So, reading Furiously Happy opened me up to reading more books about anxiety.
I decided to acknowledge anxiety as the uncool friend who never leaves you alone when I had my third kid. My first inkling that I was the nervous type was a day in my high school cafeteria when a guy friend suggested I was a little too uptight (*shrug* I probably was). But until now, besides the general work I’ve been doing to better understand what makes me tick and how I can cope better with my life, I had never done any reading specific to anxiety.
In typical over-achiever fashion, before I’d even finished Furiously Happy, I chose three MORE anxiety titles, for a total of four, and planned an anxiety book-reading binge. This whole time, I had a nagging feeling that an anxiety book binge was a bad idea.
I know, it’s not summer. But November is when we need start to need an escape the most, am I right?
I heard about this World War I era historical fiction novel by Helen Simonson from a dear friend via the post, which felt completely appropriate. I immediately requested it from the library, and it did not disappoint.
It was the best kind of historical fiction.
When I first came across the term “gateway book,” it gave me great hope. My firstborn is not a reader. According to him, he doesn’t enjoy reading even a little. He does the bare minimum required of him for school. And I keep hoping that someday, a gateway book will break through to him and help him love reading.
As I mentioned last week, after reading Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, by Jenny Lawson, on the recommendation of my friend, Janeen, I realized even people who love to read can find gateway books into new subjects or genres.
Since I’ve been writing about the books I’m reading, I’ve noticed a pattern where often, I start a book and am slow to engage with it. It has happened enough times in the past few months that I’m starting to think it’s a reflection of me and not the books.
Furiously Happy was no exception. I started reading, and at first, a lot of the humor fell flat. I kept thinking, “Why is she cursing at me? I don’t even know her!” But as I got to know Lawson through the book, the laughs came more easily, and my respect for her grew.
“So, depression and anxiety are like two sides of the same coin?” The Chaplain asked.
We were standing in the kitchen one morning. I’d just walked in the door after a night shift. It had been a busy night, partly because I had floated to another floor. I didn’t know where anything was (including my patients’ rooms), and had more patients in my assignment than we have on my own floor. I didn’t have the entry code for the supply room. It was like a field trip where all the doors were locked and there wasn’t a map. I didn’t mind it.
As usual, though, I was exhausted, and hadn’t had time for a real break. Instead, it had been five minutes here, five minutes there. On one of those five minute breaks, I’d come across a research article entitled “Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement,” by Alison Wood Brooks, published in Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014. Sometimes journal articles bogs me down, but overall, I’m a fan of reading about research studies. (If you didn’t already know I was a nerd, there you are.)
