You know, that frustrating endless middle stage of enlightenment and growth where you know exactly what your problems are and why you have them, but you simply cannot stop doing the problematic things and you drive yourself absolutely pistachios?

That’s where I’m at. I’m sitting right smack in the middle of island Can’t-sit-still-but-definitely-really-want-to.

My therapist asked what my self talk sounds like when I sit down on the couch and get right back up after six minutes because I can’t stop picturing the dishes in the sink and also I just remembered that if I throw in a load of laundry now, I can have it finished and folded before bedtime. She asked me what thought runs through my head that makes me get up and do and sit down and then get up and keep doing.

I told her that it isn’t a thought at all. It’s a feeling, a prickle.

An anxious current of have-tos and shoulds and how-dare-you-relax-when-I-have-been-working-all-day? And while I know the prickle is anxiety and guilt and shame handed directly to an unsuspecting child me in a package labeled “HERE!” that was shoved into my arms by my father and his father, still, up I go.

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