Stillness

This week I have been trying to master the art of stillness. It does not come naturally to me, and the main reason that I began knitting, which is my favorite pastime, was to occupy my hands so that I did not constantly fidget. I have trouble sitting still, keeping calm, and waiting for anything for longer than two minutes. I have had to learn, since my marriage ended and I started dealing with men who are not used to my natural inclinations, to be calm and serene. The other contributing factor to my inability to relax this week must be the fact that I just started taking birth control pills again, and I can tell that they have increased my blood pressure. I am trying everything to keep it under control, from biofeedback to meditating, but it is a hard skill to master.
I am very prompt, as a rule, so to be on time to me means to show up five minutes early. I am also prompt when it comes to answering phones, returning e-mails and responding to texts. I have trouble understanding why, for example, it takes anyone longer than thirty seconds to do any of these things. I learned some patience in my relationship with my ex-husband, slowed down to his speed, as it were, but the entire time, I see now, I was fighting it and trying to force him to speed up. His guiding principle was, "I'll get there when I get there", and mine was, "We're going to be late!"
I keep trying to keep this part of me hidden, hoping that if I do not nurture my neuroses, they will fall off and die. It's a silly way to address my flaws, but I keep telling myself that it might work and that if it doesn't, I'll think of something else later. I keep moving between moments of calm that buoy me, keep me from sinking into the panic that comes to me as easily as breathing. If I know I am going to see my friend Mike and I have something to look forward to, I am mostly calm. If I cannot get a hold of him, I feel completely untethered and restless, to the point where I cannot concentrate on whatever task is supposed to occupy me and I end up wasting hours just waiting. It affects me physically as well, as a churning in my guts and a spasm in my throat. This is the reason, the real core reason, I believe, that people enter into a relationship. There is something incredibly calming about knowing that the person you are trying to reach will answer you when you call.
The one person who knows me best is my ex-husband, and that makes accepting the fact that I cannot depend on him anymore even harder to swallow. There are others who know me well, my best friends and my family, who have seen shades of the manic obsesser who takes over my body occasionally, but none of them, with the possible exception of my sister, have any idea how I behave when I don't have to pretend. I was a good wife to Gino, but I freely admit that I was not the easiest person in the world to be married to. I work myself into a frenzy over projects that I decide need to be completed immediately, I am always in a hurry, I change positions every thirty seconds while sitting on the couch, falling asleep and driving the car, and arguing with me is impossible because I never slow down and think about what I am about to say before it is out of my mouth. I know I'm a handful, and that is one thing I never focused on while I was married. I don't know if it would have made a difference if I had actually addressed these issues, but it's too late anyway. All I can hope to accomplish at this point is working out the kinks in my system before I am involved with someone else.
For now, I am trying to understand why I launch into panic mode so often, and also what I can do to extend the moments of stillness that come and go. I have been intentionally filling my nights with other activities, other people, using reconnecting with friends and family as a buffer between me and my anxiety, just so that I do not fall into my bad habits so often. Still, I cannot shut of the part of me that is counting the minutes, ticking off increments of time in my head and comparing them to the last time I had to wait. Mike is pretty prompt, and he returns my texts in a timely fashion, but I am worried that I am showing my stripes already. My anxiety can be easily misinterpreted as a need to be taken care of, when actually I am pretty self-sufficient. As I told Gino once, if I need your help, you'll know because I will tell you. What I am trying to show Mike, however, is that I don't need him to be that person for me just yet, if ever. All that we expect from each other is someone to spend time with, and expecting anything from him beyond that would be wrong. I don't talk about my job, I try not to talk about my marriage, and he does the same for me. It's different from what I am used to, because the only serious relationship I have had so far is the one I had for seven years with Gino. It is a slow burn, when I am coming off of a relationship that began as a gas fire. I am adjusting my speed because I know that this is the best thing for me, because if I don't, I will never learn to.