Project Hemingway

It's no secret that dramatic is my middle name.

Let me paint you a picture:

The other day I got in the elevator in my apartment to go downstairs. I waited the obligatory seven or so seconds to reach the ground floor. The seconds ticked by and ticked by, but still the doors had not opened. Odd, I thought, but still waited, thinking I really ought to be more patient. But when it had been a very long many seconds, upwards of 60 I would say, with still no opening doors, I looked around and thought, oh my, is the elevator broken, am I stuck, then it escalated, my thoughts that is, to, oh my gosh, what if I can't get out, what if I plummet to my death, dear God I hate enclosed spaces, why didn't I take the stairs, I should've called my mother and told her I love her today even though I talk to her eleven times a day already. I resisted my urge to claw at the walls and begin screaming in hysteria and thought, please unhinge the crazy part of your brain and access the logical girl that resides somewhere in the recesses covered in dirt, cobwebs and old maps (um yeah maps because I love to travel, duh, get the reference) and see what could be the issue before I assumed this was a death trap. I looked around and it dawned on me that the elevator had in fact not even moved yet, so I glanced at the buttons. I live on the fourth floor. I hit the 4th floor button upon entering the elevator instead of the ground floor button. Oh. Alright then. Minor mishap. Appreciate your help there, Captain Logic. Thank the sweet heavens Lieutenant Crazy didn't completely run that mission. Could happen to anyone, I thought as I sheepishly pushed the G button and began to move, seven seconds later the doors promptly slid open. Alright disaster averted.

Drama runs through my veins pumping more steadily than my blood flow? Correct.

So it should not surprise me that today when I am reminded of something that needs paying when I already overdrew my bloody checking account for seventeen damn cents that my whole world spins madly on its axis and I want to do things like pull my hair in every direction, fall to my knees and wail, whyyyyy, gag and pretend throw-up, because I don't like real throw up, and if you know my best friend, envision her every time she says I just threw up--yes she's said this a number of times, every time it's not real throw-up--with even more of a flair for the dramatic than myself, and I respond calmly, "oh so you spit up a little in the bathroom sink?" And she yells no! But absolutely all she did was gag a little over the sink, until here eyes watered and then reports to everyone within earshot that she just "threw up." She's fond of attention in case you didn't gather that. So anyway that's what I wanted to do about my finances. I felt like I was having heart palpitations, I started jotting myself notes that said, quit being a snob and just get a job somewhere, anywhere, everything will be all right, you're not selling your soul if you have to stock soup spoons and clean bathrooms again for minimun wage. And then I obsessively filled an entire page of my notebook with the words everything will be all right. Until I could feel a small semblance of sanity taking hold again. I grabbed at every piece of logic in my heavyily-emotion-driven brain and stacked them in a neat pile so I could cool my jets. I remembered reading something a few months back. I was visiting my sister in the yoop (upper peninsula of my great state of Michigan for those of you who unfortunately have not experienced this wild slendor) and I wanted to read every piece of Ernest Hemingway's wisdom that I could get ahold of. I love that man. And were he still alive I would more than likely have a restraining order. I kid. I am very stealthy, I so wouldn't get caught trying to invade his privacy. Again I kid. I am an upstanding young lady that may or may not ignore the rules of trespassing from time to time, but in no way have a problem with the law. Anyway. I happened upon this little pearl of wisdom from my man Ernest:

"Worry a little bit everyday and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything."

Oh brother, if the average person worries on an average level and still loses a couple years, I have probably already short-changed my life-span by at least a decade by now with my incessant and psychotic worrying. So as I sat worrying, jotting down notes to myself and generally not enjoying my lunch date with my boyfriend when I was previously throroughly enjoying his miffy mood and now I had to instead bask in my own (oh I do so enjoy when he gets a little cranky because it happens so rarely that I get a slight thrill when I am not the only one being a toot in the relationship--naturally) that I remebered Hemingway's words about doing what you can and then just letting it go.

So after lunch, I went to the bank, took care of the filthy business of my overdraft, then felt mountains of relief just from dealing with the problem at hand and so I began to cry. Again, dramatic, what? Ahem, yes.

Moral of the story: I am going to start channeling my inner Hemingway, because maybe it'll balance out the inner theatrics. Well one can hope. Here's to Project Hemingway! I will let you know how I fare.