How My Trip To Boston, Health Goals, and Crippling Anxiety Deterred Me From Success This Week

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Every once in a while, you’ll experience a moment of clarity where you realize that you’ve fucked up. These moments are usually few and far between, and if you have to question whether or not you’re having one, you probably aren’t. I’m talking about the moments that you have made conscious decisions leading up to.

For example, all week, the forecast has been an 80% chance of rain on Thursday, but you’ve been looking on the bright side all week and decide not to bring an umbrella to work. Once you step out of your car and feel the first drop of water hit the top of your head, you’ll have the “oh shit” moment and realize that you’ve fucked up.

Having one of these moments alone is enough to completely floor you. It ruins your day and leaves you with a negative outlook for the rest of the week. Since last Thursday, that’s happened to me five times. Let me elaborate.

I underestimated New England weather.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that almost every day for the entire week leading up to my trip to Boston I was checking the weather. Every day, my sources told me that it was going to be no higher than 55 degrees and raining for both of the full days and nights that I would be there. “No chance,” I thought to myself, “80% still leaves room for error!”

There was no error. It was roughly 45 degrees and raining for both days I was there. Did I have a good time? Of fucking course I did. I took on a new city by myself and fucking crushed it. I ended up walking something like 12 miles over the whole weekend, despite the cold and rain. That doesn’t change the fact that I hopped off the Blue Line in Chicago feeling soggy and happy to be home.

I underestimated how much a food and drink combination could fuck me up.

I’ve never been one of those people with an iron stomach. Sure, I’ve had my strong points, like taking three shots of whiskey followed by a shot of tequila or eating chicken tamales that come from a stranger’s cooler at the bar. Normally, though, I have to keep track of what I’m eating or drinking because if I don’t, I’ll probably end up face down in a toilet for the rest of the night.

That brings me back to Boston. I decided that my second day there was going to be “Seafood Saturday,” wherein I would only eat seafood for my meals. That means shrimp and crab cakes Benedict with coffee for breakfast, lobster roll and several heavy beers for lunch, and just a plate of fried calamari for dinner. Combine all of that with a few shots of whiskey and a few vodka sodas, and we ended up with an interesting evening sharing the top floor of an Airbnb bathroom with an Asian family.

I decided to do a Whole 30.

On Monday, I realized I have been absolutely coasting through spring with blind hopes that I’ll magically be in fantastic shape for the summer. Being the overdramatic person that I am, I decided that the best move for me would be to drastically change my diet for a whole month and bank hard on the fact that it might put me in a position where I can look sexy and not funny when I wear an open Hawaiian shirt.

In an attempt to get myself hyped up on it and convince myself that it was a good idea, I let my plan slide to a few coworkers. They have now joined this fun-o-rama that is Whole 30 and I no longer have an option for backing out. So, starting May 1st, my social life will be taking a nosedive for 30 days. Wish me luck.

I had a shit load of anxiety attacks.

Anxiety is something that runs in my family. Don’t need to get into it, but it’s always been there. I’ve been to therapy for it before, learned some ways to calm myself down, and have been pretty good with it since. Well, over the last week I’ve felt completely frozen by it. I’m not sure what it is, although it’s probably the buildup of stress from work, my checking account, and moving apartments this weekend.

What sucks is not being able to tie this back to any specific event. If I could, maybe I would be able to think about how I might handle it differently. Maybe I could think of all of the worst possible outcomes and then realize how unlikely all of those are. But I can’t, and so I’ve sat here feeling overwhelmed and upset all week.

I agreed to get up early on a Saturday.

When my roommate and I signed the lease on our new place, we made sure that it started two days before the lease at our current place ended. That way we could not only move out at our own place, but we wouldn’t be homeless for that weird 12 hour period like so many people are when they’re moving.

That being said, that significantly jacks up my timeline for the weekend. Friday night, I’m going to a private hot tub party on the Gold Coast. Yeah, I party on the Gold Coast sometimes. It’s really not a big deal, guys. Anyway, our lease starts on Saturday, and the leasing agent wants to do one last walkthrough with us…at 7:30 a.m. And I agreed to it. Thank god we’ve already activated utilities because there’s a high likelihood that I’m going to be the first person to vomit in our new toilet. What a milestone, right?

I’d like to say that I’ll start taking more control of my weeks but between the hot tub party, moving apartments, and the start of Whole 30, this weekend should be nothing if not full of L’s.

Here’s to next week. Cheers, friends..

Image via Shutterstock

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Charlie

Using sarcasm as a defense mechanism since 1993. At any given moment I'm either tired, drunk, or stressed out. Get at me at charliepgp@gmail.com or whatever.

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