Derailed

The hits kept coming last week.

My grandma was in the hospital last week and furious about it, which is a hilarious reaction to people trying to take care of you. It’s also how I knew she was totally fine.

And she is—she’s fine. She was a little breathless one morning, and then she puked, so they took her to the hospital for some tests. The nurse called me to let me know she was on her way, and I met her there two hours later. The hospital is ten minutes down the road, but I wanted to give them time to do their tests. I’m also trying to practice not completely panicking as a knee-jerk reaction.

I’m a panicky person. I like to spiral bad news out to its worst possible conclusion and let it ruin me before circling back to some semblance of rational thought. It’s a terrible way to live and I do not recommend it, which is why I’m actively trying to change my emotional patterns. Panicking doesn’t solve anything, and it doesn’t even make me feel good—so why am I like this? As per usual, you can blame my mother/my childhood/how I was raised. According to my therapist, I have a heightened learned response to bad news as a result of being in constant terror as a child. I don’t even talk to that chump anymore and my mother is still finding ways to infiltrate my goddamn life. I also strongly feel that she should be chipping in for my therapy.

I don’t just panic—I immediately try to fix everything. When my friend tells me that girls are being mean to my goddaughter at school, I’m halfway to my car, ready to drive down there and give her tips for swift and devastating retaliation before I realize I can just text back and listen. Nobody actually wants me to fix anything, and worrying never solves anything.

When they called to tell me that my grandma was going to the hospital, my first thought was “WELL SHE MADE IT TO 92 YEARS OLD IT WAS A GOOD RUN". Just fully planning her funeral within 30 seconds of getting the call, even though I know her to be a healthy and vibrant woman. If you find this to be entirely too bleak, you should know that my grandmother is constantly insinuating death into every conversation. Examples:

“What do you want for your birthday?”
“A casket.”