twistin' myself free

What do you do...

When your heart thunders like a drum, silencing the world around you? When each breath is a battle, the air a viscous enemy? When your insides turn and writhe as if caught in the relentless clench of a Medieval torture device?

The answer is a simple, two-pronged attack:

1. Clutch a pristine journal, letting its blank pages become a canvas for your chaos.

2. Arm yourself with noise-canceling headphones, letting Sam Cooke's voice become your holy mantra.

And as “Twistin’ the Night Away” loops for the 47th time, you’ll swear you can feel Mr. Cooke's ghostly eyes lovingly roll. But hey, if the King of Soul judges your coping mechanisms, jot that down in your journal too. Who knows? Maybe the afterlife could use some pointers on modern stress management.

I long to be a peaceful raccoon, not a rabid, manic one. via Elijah Jambalaya.

I never aspired to manage others, yet here I am, an archivist shepherding a team through the dusty labyrinth of historical records and artifacts. But the irony isn't lost on me. Every group project from elementary school through college bore my fingerprints — my “A’s only” perfectionism the glue holding together half-baked ideas.

Now, as I oversee my corner of the archive (really just a maze of shelves with delusions of order), I realize those group projects were just dress rehearsals for this main event. My anxiety, once a personal tormentor, has morphed into a warped superpower. It spots misfiled documents before they're lost to time, pushes for meticulous preservation, and keeps me awake at night, my mind reorganizing finding aids no researcher will fully appreciate.

The cosmic joke? The very trait that makes me excel at this job is the one slowly unraveling me. Each acquisition, each catalog entry, each restoration project is a new fight against the rising tide of “what-ifs” and “if-onlys.” I've traded in my role as school project savior for a position as CEO of Anxiety Archives Ltd., and business, unfortunately, is booming.

And this week, as errors reached an all-time high and forced me to conduct several nerve-wracking performance reviews, my self-prescribed treatments failed spectacularly. The ritual of burning thoughts, the soothing balm of Sam Cooke's voice, a new guided journal — all rendered useless. Instead, I found myself marooned on my couch, a trembling island in a sea of dread. I counted heart palpitations like others might count sheep, with my body vibrating to some discordant, invisible frequency. In those moments, I wasn't an archivist, a team lead, or even a functioning adult. I was simply a scared animal, instinct overriding reason, waiting for the storm to pass.

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I know you've been there. Stuck. Sinking into the quicksand.

Afraid that any movement will only worsen reality.

It’s like…you know you need to close the browser, but your finger hovers over the “refresh” button. You know you should step away, close the laptop, take a breath. But in that moment, when anxiety has its talons deep in you, the simple act of walking away feels like scaling Everest.

It's a cruel paradox — the times we most need to reset are precisely when it feels impossible. Our brains, these marvels of evolution, reveal themselves as masters of sabotage, trapping us in loops of our own making. We refresh our inbox compulsively, check our phone for the hundredth time, replay conversations in our head — each action deepening the spiral. But why? We know, logically, that stepping away would help, but logic took a coffee break and left anxiety in charge of the control panel.

Neuroscientists would tell us it's the amygdala working overtime, flooding our system with cortisol and adrenaline. They'd explain how our prefrontal cortex — the rational part of our brain — gets overwhelmed, leaving us at the mercy of our most primitive instincts. But knowing the science doesn't make it easier when you're in the thick of it. Telling yourself “it’s just a chemical reaction” is about as effective as using a water pistol to stop a forest fire.

Absurdly (irony seems to follow me like a shadow), the very organ causing this frenzy is also our only tool to escape it. It's like being locked in a room where the key is hidden somewhere inside, but the lights are off, and the floor is covered in Lego bricks. You know the solution exists but finding it while in pain and darkness feels like an impossible task.

And yet, somehow, we do. We fumble in the dark, we step on every sharp edge, but eventually, our hands close around that key. We find the strength to close the browser, to step away, to breathe. The storm unwinds, passes, and we emerge — battered, exhausted, but alive.

Waiting for the next time our brains decide to take us on another ride through the funhouse of angst.

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This week felt like a backslide. Old fears I thought I'd retired to the back of the stage came roaring into the spotlight, demanding an encore. But even as I was twisting and turning through sleepless nights and worry-filled days, I realized something: this awkward dance was also propelling me forward. Because that's the thing about growth, about life — we’re still moving, even when we feel stuck. The rhythm might be off, the steps might be clumsy, but the dance goes on.

And I intend to keep moving, keep growing. Some nights I'll be the life of the party, others I'll be sourly counting heartbeats on my couch. And maybe the next time the music of anxiety starts playing too loud, I'll remember: this too is part of the rhythm. I'll grab my journal, crank up Mr. Cooke, and twirl my way towards whatever comes next. Acknowledging that there’s a certain ridiculousness to it all…

But maybe that's the point.

And as this hits your inbox, I’ll still be humming “Twistin' the Night Away,” because it’s just that good. Only now, I’m imagining myself as the confident “older queen” frolicking about in her diamond rings — like the Gabor of my damn dreams. 💎

🎶 Here's a fella in blue jeans
Dancin' with an older queen
Who's dolled up in her diamond rings and
Twistin' the night away

Man, you oughta see her go
Twistin' to the rock and roll
Here you find the young and old
Twistin' the night away 🎶

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