The Shape of Panic

Seal of the Internal Revenue Service, Image via Wikipedia

What? Two posts in one day?  Cori, are you feeling okay?

Ahem.

Upon giving myself a few extra minutes to get to the bus stop, I stopped and checked my mail.  This has become a regular thing since starting school.   I think I must be confusing the hell out of the mail-lady.

Anyway, upon sorting through the flyers, advertisements, postcards from local politicians who don’t realize that sending me that stuff makes me less likely to vote for them,  and bills (seriously, what’s with all the bills?  I paid for electricity like a month ago) I found this:

 

Do. Not. Want. Also: I'm really bad at opening envelopes.

 

Cue the hasty exit of any sense of calmness and rationality.

As I was waiting for the bus, I left the mail in the mailbox, with the plan of picking it up on the way back from school.  And, for some reason, (crazy, huh) I couldn’t stop thinking about this letter from the IRS.

Why were they sending me a letter?  It’s not a check, it’s a letter.  What do they want?  This could be really bad.  But, if it was really bad, it would have been a certified letter, or someone would have come and knocked on my door in person, right?  That’s what happens on TV and in the movies, right?  They just sent me a check for $37.  Do they want their $37 back?  I already spent it.  Okay, so it wouldn’t be hard to find another $37… and so on and so forth.

Finally (I missed the bus I wanted to get on, but that’s okay because it was running early, so I wasn’t late for class or anything)  I went back to the mailbox and pulled out the letter.  I figured if I was going to be freaking out, I might as well see if there was something worth freaking out over.  It could be nothing after all.  Never mind that even when it’s nothing, in my head, it’s never nothing.

Upon opening the envelope, I discovered this:

So, instead of including a note in envelope with the check for $37, they sent me another piece of mail, telling me that they sent me a check for $37.  Bureaucracy, folks.

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Deconstructing the bad day

Last week was one of the worst of my life.  Since then, I’ve been thinking about what makes a bad day, or a bad week for that matter.  Is it that the events of said day are truly horrible, or is it that we focus on the horrible, but ignore the good?

I’m inclined to believe that it’s the former.   Something happens to put us in a bad mood, and consciously or subconsciously, we focus on the things that will reinforce our bad mood–we notice the jerk who cuts us off in traffic, but not the person who lets us in.  We gripe about forgetting our umbrella, but don’t notice how wonderful the rain is.

Sunday, things turned around for me.  I made it to church–I’m claiming all three meetings, but that might be stretching it–I had what amounted to a therapy session during Sunday School.

I’ve been trying to focus more on the positive in my life, and let the stress go–something that’s nigh-on impossible for me.  I know that it’s foolish to worry about things that I can’t control.

For now, all I can do is focus on my schooling, and know that whatever happens, happens.  I’m trying not to stress, but that can always lead to stressing because I’m stressed out, which just turns into this whole big mess…