Last week (as I write), I was running late. Running late is a bugbear of mine. I think I am about average in my reaction to tardiness in others. I’d prefer it doesn’t happen but after an appropriate propitiatory offering (which doesn’t have to be the first born child) I am willing to forgive.
But running late myself makes me feel inordinately stressed. This particular occasion was a perfect storm of a situation and context guaranteed to make me spiral.
What it feels like, at a time like this, is being caught in maybe two vices. One vice is applied to my chest and another around my head. With every setback, no matter how minor, the handles crank to the right (I can picture them doing this in my head, and almost hear it) and the vices squeeze tighter. And when things go well, the handles crank to the left and the pressure eases somewhat. But it is very unlikely that a vice will fully release until I either have something to drink or go to bed. On particularly egregious occasions a vice remains in place through the night, but it is normally released by the next morning.
Crucially, it does not really matter how objectively serious the inciting incident is. Last week I was running late to meet my sisters and their kids at Queen’s Quay to get the ferry to Toronto Island. It was a family day out, being late was quite an inconvenience, but not one with any lasting consequences; coming towards the end of a delightful family visit and in good weather. What made it so stressful was a combination of other factors. One: I started out running late – this is a killer because once you're late, you can only get later, and indeed you are doing so every moment between now and the moment you arrive. So even if everything else goes well (which it generally doesn’t at that stage) the passing of time alone is turning the handle to the right.
Not only were we late, but we were late because I had misjudged the timing for the journey, so by the time we set off it was already impossible for us to be on time.
Two: it involved me having to drive the car right into downtown and then locate a parking place while navigating Toronto drivers. My working assumption is that once you get south of Bloor every other driver in Toronto has instinctively sensed my discomfort behind the wheel. They are already in a snarling rage at my presence on the road. Any minor delay or error on my part can only exacerbate this ten-fold. So attempting to turn into a parking lot, only to realise it is for authorized drivers only, reverse out and then slowly look for an alternative, feels like it will elicit a fate similar to Edward Woodward’s in The Wicker Man.
Three: due to the vagaries of Whatsapp, I was unable to contact either of my sisters during this whole time. I was therefore unable to gabble out the stream-of-consciousness excuses, apologies and swearwords that, while largely unnecessary, are hugely cathartic in the moment.
Four: and really topping the whole thing off, because I was in a panic, I became flustered and so took an inordinately long way round to get to the quay. This was triply stressful. It meant we were even later than we needed to be. Moreover, I was acutely aware that I would have to retrace my steps and get back from the island to the car park to pick it up before it closed, and every step we took made that feel like a longer and more arduous labour.
Five: I had the boy with me, and something about trying to do something (even ever so slightly) stressful, while also being required to maintain the pretence of a responsible adult in front of my son, renders me temporarily incapable of doing either.
Again, this was not an inherently stressful situation. But the severity or otherwise of the situation is not a reliable predictor of my stress levels. I have, on occasion, been in far more stressful, and even somewhat dangerous situations without feeling this tooth-grinding, head-beating tension.
I also find it fairly easy to keep calm if my companion is visibly stressed out, as if there is only a limited amount of panic available in a situation and if the other person is currently monopolising it, then not much is left to me.
My plan for future panic attacks therefore, is to ditch all the deep breathing and mindfulness that proves so useless (if I am calm enough to start paying attention to my breathing I am not properly panicking). Instead, my plan is to create an imaginary companion who is having a full-on, peddle-to-the-metal, absolute shit-fit. And see if I can’t transfer my panic on to them instead.
Not-stoned speculation
Calf-tattoos
Just a quick one this week:
What's the deal with calf-tattoos? I feel like they’re culturally coded but I don’t feel like I quite get what the coding is? It's popular in football (soccer) fandom, but also sometimes it feels like it's meant to be more threatening than that? But then I also know people who have them who are not in the least bit threatening, and really don’t seem like they were trying to be. So…?
Better or Worse
Outdoor pools
Better in Toronto. The outdoor pool in High Park is free! And there’s never a queue. Plus they play music, and last time we were there they’d clearly left an older millennial in charge of the music because Pixies and No Doubt were playing. I love the Lido on Hampstead Heath dearly, but it's expensive and the queue on a hot day is almost as outsized as the price.
Edited by Jasper Jackson