June 15, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
Every year, my anxiety increases as the days lengthen, yet every year I seem to forget that until it has gone on for a while; I start feeling all weird and restless and agitated, but somehow it never dawns on me why I feel that way until late May or early June. It probably doesn't help that my brain is sneaky, so as soon as I figure out why I'm feeling a certain way, it starts manifesting in a new way. For example, I used to carry a lot of stress in my muscles, and as soon as I'd figure out that a mystery ache was stress-related it would clear up and move someplace else in my body. Last year I got lucky; I believe the anxiety mostly manifested in the obsessive home-improvement project I've been telling y'all about for over a year. But this year, the rain delayed our getting started as early in the season, so the anxiety seems to have manifested in an unusual degree of procrastination, disinterest in doing things I really need to get done, and just plain forgetting. Maybe now that I've figured it out I'll be able to fight it a little better, and in another week the days will begin to slowly grow shorter anyway. But that probably means next year it will choose some entirely new and strange way to make my life more difficult, and I'll have to figure it out from scratch again.