But do not fret. There’s always something to worry about if you try. And I do try…
Dateline: International World Headquarters Hilton Cabo San Lucas, Baja California. The La Vista Restaurant, so named as it overlooks the Sea of Cortes… Sure, the scene is lovely…white beaches, blue-green water, palapas, fresh shrimp, fellas in white military-style shorts and shirts, meeting your every need even before you think of it…. “Yes, that’s perfect with shade, another pomegranate margarita? Certainly. And thanks, you remember I like extra ice….”
If you can’t make it here without complaining….Well, you’re at my level. We wouldn’t make it an hour on the bad side of town.
How easy is it for you to have what’s going on inside your chest cavity, your ongoing sense of well being, shaken by an outside person?
Doesn’t have to be a stranger. Could be your special person makes a comment, such as, “That yogurt’s not fat-free, you know…” (heard at the table to my left)… Or, “This is, too, the wrong way to the beach elevator! But, never mind, you’re happy as long as I do everything your way…” (couple passing by) …
You’ve seen us, the anxious ones… glancing side-to-side, noticing who’s seated where in an expensive café and how quickly. Which line is the shortest at the bank and the grocery. We may look cool, but, inside…we’re keeping tabs. Inside we want, we need, to have made the right choice in picking a line at the bank. You think not? You think, no one’s that pitiful. Just test the theory. Next time you pick a line that is made up of three people who waited until they were “up” to start their paperwork….and the person in the car with you points out your folly….see what happens.
It’s easy to come across mature when everything is going your way. In clinical training, the phrase is, everyone looks about evenly mature when there’s no stress. Put on the pressure, and it’s a different story. When trouble starts in paradise, each person distorts the scene as influenced by anxiety. For the lucky few, the new world is only slightly altered.
For those of us whose Emotional Guidance System can make a catastrophe out of the slightest inconvenience…well, it’s not pretty.
“Which is more real? The world you can touch? Or, the world you are responding to?”
Oh, yes. Back to Baja. Here we are overlooking the aquamarine Sea of Cortez, unimaginable and undeserved luxury. I’m floating on air, nary a complaint to be spoken as I roll my laptop toward the fabulous breakfast offering unimaginable and undeserved variety.
And, then…only yards from my destination…still in my cocoon of self management….the anxious lady in the blue bathing suit with the lace cover dress… the spiffy expensive “resort wear” cover I’d admired in the hotel store but couldn’t bring myself to spring for…comes toward me down the open air tile verandah. The part about the cover is important because we are more likely to be infected by people we perceive as having something going we don’t…
Anxious people are often lurking in hallways looking for victims. Did I say that? Did I suggest that victims are born, not made?
The Devil in the Blue Bathing Suit touches my arm, checks my expression for a clue on how this anxiety transfer is going to go….Am I a willing victim, primed to be infected…so that the two of us glob together in distress?
I land my best gotta-lot-of-work-to-do stare, which was not nearly as powerful as her well-practiced desire to share her anxiety. She says, “Pardon me, the bed in your room, is it terribly uncomfortable?”
And, now what’s my move? I feel her pull. She wants me to agree. My Emotional Guidance Systems says, “Surely, there’s some fault you can find with your accommodations so that the two of us can glob together waiting for prey, for other anxious guests to stick onto our blob….
We can quiz them, “Say, how’s your bed?…Ah ha… Thought so. Me, too.”
And, we’re off from the starting gate.
How to go?….How to go?….Mañana, baby.
