5:30 a.m.

I have a good mind for procrastinating. Unfortunately, I have a good mind to get some shit done, and said mind has woken me up at 4:45 in the morning. I have five papers due in eight days. One is halfway done.

A few months ago, I didn't feel like going to school. The opportunity is the chance of a lifetime. Instead of not deciding, or waiting for determination to take hold, I just applied. Then I got in. Yet, I still didn't feel like it. I've learned one thing in my nearly 40 years on the planet--sometimes listening to your feelings isn't the only way to make a decision. Now, not only do I feel like it, but I'm for the most part enjoying it. The feeling of getting a decent if not excellent grade makes me look forward to the next assignment. The feeling of developing my critical thinking skills and putting them to task is better than I could have guessed. Spring semester is almost over, and luckily summer sessions are just around the corner. So going to school; not so bad. I had always hoped it would happen sooner than this, but if I do what I think I can do, I'll be done in five years.

I stumbled into a wonderful article about mental "illness," yesterday. It raised the question: why do doctors want to keep us sick? Ethically, they are a mess. Our country and its views about mental illness are a mess. We are capable of so much more than just "managing" our anxiety, our anger, our control issues, our trust issues...the list of our issues is never ending. The list of issues is human nature, declared an illness. It also made me question my approach, which right now is medication in (very) small doses. I haven't determined that it's a good idea not to have a little bit of synthetic, but effective help. I don't judge myself in that way. No one should. However, I don't want my emotional and probably biological glitches to become a life sentence. My life goals should not be to manage my anxiety. If that were the case, I would avoid stressful situations. I wouldn't strive to do well at work. I wouldn't go to school. I wouldn't have bought a house. But I also don't want to enjoy those things in the context of managing the stress they inflict. I need to enjoy them. This is required therapy.

I recently took a Mindfulness course, and I got more out of that than I could have imagined. The mindful way of living is better than the manageable way of living. I was already doing much of it. Practicing more made it that much better. Made me more present. I don't do the dishes on autopilot anymore. I feel the warm water, the soapy sponge, the clean of rinsing the soap off of the shiny smooth surfaces of our coffee cups. O.K., so maybe that sounds crazy. But it brings me into the present, into my life, rather than into the abyss of doing most of what I do every day while thinking about the rest of my life. It immerses me in the rest of my life, which is right now. After all, hearing my breath right now means I'm alive. When I don't hear it, I'm not sure where I'll be or what I'm doing. And then bam, there's the panic.

As of today, I have seven days to write four and a half papers. Half of one day is band practice. The remainder of that day is a birthday celebration (dinner) for my sister's birthday. The day after my papers are due is our housewarming party. Plus work. Plus six days of cooking dinner and yes, doing dishes. Yet, I'm not particularly anxious. Not that it matters if I were.

I still have better things to do than sit around and manage my anxiety.