Stress in the City (or Small Steps Towards a Big Payoff?)

(Yes, I have the coffee mug and the poster up as daily affirmations)

Part of embracing city life is actually enjoying it. Not faking it, not pleasing people for approval, but really enjoying your own unique life in all its awkward and fumbling glory. Sometimes satisfaction and feeling connected to the grid comes naturally; other days I feel like a foreign body in an eyeball. So disclaimer: this post is not about sassy shoes, theme parties, the beach, or pay-by-the-ounce frozen yogurt. Gotta deal with what's underneath, so that when the pretty all rises to the surface you've got something solid beneath it (and there are only so many times Yogurtland can fortify my dignity).

Some days, city living can put you through the ringer, whether it's feeling like every lane is the slow lane (in EVERY situation where a lane is possible, in consecutive situations), or realizing the only arable land you own is a dead potted plant, or owning up to the rat race that earned you a patronizing boss but lost you a paycheck to cover rent in an apartment that may--but probably does not--have a washer-dryer in unit. I am stressed even writing that. And for what? A recent study found that city dwellers showed increased activity in the amygdala--that lovable, almond-shaped part of your brain--when given the same mental task as our more even-keeled rural and townie neighbors. It's essentially a part of the brain integral to fear processing and self-protection.

I'd like to propose an analogy: this result reminds me of the ADT home-security system commercials, with the good-looking home-security guy who answers the phone when a rabid Viking breaks in your house...except in this example, the "security threat" was a harmless squirrel who snuck in the doggie door...i.e., a non-stressful stimulus triggers a stressful reaction. As I write this, in fact, I stress over the possibility that city life may in fact not have made me more capable of handling stress, but nay: it may have increased my stress and fear response in situations where my pals with porches and yards are, quite frankly, kicking ass and kicking back.

So how to cope? The funny thing is, it's so simple. You're stressin' to the max, then all of a sudden, while you're settling into your self-pitious fog:

LAUGH. Laugh, I tell you. This is Small Step One in a quest for a happier and less active amygdala. We get our LOLs in unexpected ways, and I'm telling you, laugh at those initial stressors. Laugh (in your head please) at the lady in the Trader Joes line, in front of you, who had that hidden shopping cart full in addition to her basket and it's gonna be an hour and your meter will expire because of this. Laugh (loudly out loud) at the terrible driver who slows down but never turns. Laugh (very quietly and to appropriate persons) about your boss and his micromanaging of your every staple. Laugh, by all means, at the fact that you have spent so much money on that tandem parking space, because when you laugh, you are laughing with all of us.*

*everyone on the 405 is TOTALLY cracking up at how funny it is that it takes two hours to get over the hill.

I don't even have to tell you about all the wonderful chemicals you release when you really, truly laugh. So please, keeping doing that. When you've had your fill, think about Step Two: Giving. Laughing and giving are very close, actually, as the best laughs are shared. In a more serious sense, I am realizing that fulfillment is an open-cycle of happiness and giving. Yes; that is layers of vague on top of vague, but if you think you can hoard the Happy all to yourself, you're crazy. I'll be working on ways to articulate this Giving I speak of, but I might need to get back to you next week...heading to Vegas tomorrow morning to see Britney Spears in concert, and I don't know what the heck is going to materialize over the next 48 hours. Not a clue. But believe you me, I will be laughing, and I will be giving (my money to a blackjack dealer).

Oh and don't for a second think that I've forgotten to post photos and musings from a Southern wedding. Just waiting for the pro pictures. And then I will go all sentimental on you, and you will regret ever having wanted me to post pictures from my weekend in rural Louisiana. NO ONE loves a snow cone like I do.

My dog, my Abita beer, and my hot tub bid you a wonderful weekend.

Just the daily...

...affirmations.

-I will learn to cook a steak.
-I will visit Monterey, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Carmel by the end of 2009.
-I will keep up this healthy kick. I will lose 10 lbs.
-I will start looking for music for my choreography in a few months. NOT the night before the redeye.
-I will budget. Not stupid-strict but enough to keep the savings growing.
-I already paid off all my credit cards--plan on keeping it that way.
-I will begin to learn French and will brush up on my Latin/Greek and Irish Gaelic.
-I will plan a vacation for Melissa and me.
-I will not XXXXXXXXXX anymore. Not ever. Never. No.
-I will set more drinks and dinners at new places.
-I will go to Harvelle's and back to Foxtail.
-I will take more pictures.

That's it!

Oh on a sidenote...have been brainstorming ideas for a book. I want to start writing, and am FIGHTING to not go front to back, cover to cover, from title to last sentence. I need to do more thinking but am ready to lay down a structure. I have a couple ideas I'm mulling around but I think the one with promise would be:

a collection of my observations on moving West, staying put, or just general self-promotion for this generation. Looking at my peers, it is abundantly clear to me that we are spread across the country, some of us started West, some Mid, some East...no matter the birthplace, we have the option of choosing a trajectory and in the fame-game you must move West.

Some of us are held like a dead deer in a barb wire fence (or pulled up by the conviction to start one's own "settled" family...whatever your perspective), in any-city-USA where people in their early twenties start a family and shed some selfishness. If you don't end up wrapped in shrapnel--ok happily married--somewhere, you finally arrive West and realize that if you don't KILL yourself and stomp on the shoulders of others in order to climb up and up and up to FAMOUS/SUCCESSFUL/BEAUTIFUL....you don't run into any more barb wire fences. You fall straight into the ocean.

And then you wander the rest of the world and focus your "self" inward, not propagated outward. You learn about communities and cultures that are not indulgently USA-ish. You live with less. You stop eating preservatives and although you drink more, you are the thinnest you've ever been because you actually walk. You see history from not hundreds but from thousands of years ago. You have lovers and friends and new families that you leave just as easily as you met.

You understand that success is self-realized, and can never come from other people...Then you either return to New York and start the journey West again, if you have the energy. If not, you peacefully surrender to fall into whatever fence will love you back and provide stability. You're stuck there but at least you know where you are.

So for those who stay West, who need need need to see and be seen by Important People, a platform that is different than from any other time in history exists. We viral and blog and advertise what we are willing to sell the world. We try to be thinner and more interesting than we really are. It is the responsibility of the West to be difficult, fatal even.

And I am not sure yet what the West or the world gives back. Am reflecting on that and would honestly like to develop what I can about this pattern, but I have a horrible tendency to generalize and pigeonhole. All a part of my process though.

Hm. That was a lengthy footnote.

More later...