Battle of the Mind

I woke up feeling anxious. Blah. It was cloudy and drizzling when the alarm went off at six and my body was telling me to roll over and forget about it. We can go shopping another time. I had set the alarm early because I wanted to beat the congestion at the border.  But, I dunno, I just wasn’t in the mood. So I hit snooze a couple times, then I reset the alarm for 7:30 and went back to sleep. Not long after, Kelly came up to join me. I was half asleep but feeling her snuggle up to me in the morning is my favoritest thing in the entire world. We talked a bit, and I let her know that I had been feeling anxious since I woke up. She admitted that she was getting a sense of dread every time she thought about going to the mall since she woke up too.  So neither one of us wanted to go.

So we laid there wondering what to do. It seemed pretty cut and dry, don’t want to, don’t go. Or was it really that simple? Were we allowing our minds to play that little game. Letting all the “what if’s” crawl in and kill an idea that was fun and exciting when we thought about it just the day before?

I suggested we should just roll with it. Let’s get up and see how we feel. Ok. That was agreed upon. But then we snoozed. And we dawdled. And we pondered some more. Finally at around 8:30am I got out of bed and showered. Kelly got up after and took a nice long bath. I felt pretty good by then and so did she. We won the battle with our minds. We were going shopping. But by the time we left after breakfast, it was almost noon.

We got to the tunnel and it was jammed. I decided we should take the bridge, as getting stuck in traffic in the tunnel raises my anxiety level, slight claustrophobia I guess. The bridge was jammed too, and it took about 30 minutes to get across.

We got to Somerset Collection at around 1pm. I have to say that I really like Somerset. It’s a strikingly beautiful mall with really cool stores. The first store Kelly spotted and we went into I LOVED. Chock full of really neat stuff and clothes that Kelly would look great in. I don’t remember the name, but I’m sure Kelly blogged about it. We found the shoes Kelly wanted a bit later, had a bite to eat the Peacock Café area (it’s their fancy name for a food court) and then decided to head to Great Lakes Crossing.

But it hit me again, the anxiety. We had just left Somerset and I started to get some stomach cramps a bit. It was raining and grey, I was tired, it was 3pm. We should just go home I told Kelly. She said sure. She had her shoes and she was up for whatever I decided. I really wanted to go to the other mall, but my brain was playing it’s games with me. Just then I spotted a gas station, and remembering that I was low and it’s much cheaper in the US, I pulled in to fill up. While Kelly filled the tank and ran in to pay, I was able to regain control of my head. When she got back in the van, I asked her “would you be mad if I changed my mind again?”  “Nope” she smiled. So we headed up I-75 toward Great Lakes Mall. The exit was closed, a truck had lost it’s load, we had to go miles past to the next exit to turn around and come back, and again I had to battle the urge to just go home. I won, we made it.

We didn’t have much time by then, but we made the best of it. I liked this mall as well and the selection is so much better on the US side. Kelly got a great deal on some boots and I found some binoculars I like. By the time we left, the rain had stopped, the traffic was light and we flew threw the border, declaring all our purchases of course. (wink)

So, after almost canceling all our plans, we ended up making a great day out of it. Success on all fronts as far as finding what we were looking for. And no real major snafus that our brains had assured us would happen.  And I have to add that Kelly is a hoot to go shopping with. There is a side of her I had first seen on our weekend in Niagara Falls when we first met and that had endeared her to me. She is a nut sometimes, much like me; she can say silly things to complete strangers just to make them smile. I love that. I do that too just because it’s fun to see the reactions. And she did it again today. We were in a hunting and fishing store, looking for binoculars. As we walked down a long aisle, a man was crouching to get into a blind. It was camouflage and had only little squares to peek out of and I guess shoot from. As we walked past, Kelly poked her face into the square and said, “If I were a deer I would totally NOT know you’re in there!!” and then kept walking.  A startled voice from the tent said “Uhhhh…good, perfect! I’m countin on that!” It still makes me smile to think about it.