In the past, I had my shit so outwardly together that nobody could see, let alone imagine, the turmoil happening inside my brain and body. I was so overcommitted that my day-to-day tasks were less like surgical strikes and more like ER triage. So yeah, I had it together in the sense that if you presented me with a problem, I could solve it. A project, I could complete it. A thorny philosophical question about the state of your romantic relationship, I could opine convincingly on it. I was a daughter, friend, student, employee, boss, wife, editor, cheerleader, psychologist, sounding board, and all-around Get Shit Done Ninja.
But seven or eight years ago, I was presented with a problem I didn’t know how to solve.
I’d been unwell for most of the week. My stomach hurt. I had a low-grade headache. I couldn’t seem to take in a deep breath and periodically wondered if it was my new bra causing the problem. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.) As I was getting ready for work one day, I told my husband I was feeling nauseous.
“Maybe you’re hungover?” he said.
While this hypothesis was not without merit in my early thirties (and, okay, even now in my late thirties), I was pretty sure that wasn’t the cause of the tropical storm currently brewing somewhere in my torso.
In retrospect, I probably should have called in sick to work; it was a “Summer Friday,” so we only had to show up for a half day and most people, including my boss, were on vacation. Also: I was actually sick. But Simon had shit to do! So Simon got on the train.
My disdain for the New York City subway is considerable (and well-documented), and was greatly magnified by what happened that morning—which was me feeling like I was going to vomit for fifteen grueling stops until I burst out of the train car at Fifty-Ninth Street and sort of rush-hobbled my way into the office so I could puke in peace. Or at least not in a trash can on the subway platform.
So there I was, hanging my head over the toilet in the twelfth-floor ladies’ room at a major publishing house and… nothing. Apparently the storm was still gathering strength off the coastline. I went to my desk, fired up my computer, and emailed my husband Ugh, still feel awful. Then another wave came and I rush-hobbled down the hall to the restroom. Again: nothing.
Oh holy fuck, am I pregnant?
Back in my swivel chair, I tried to get comfortable so I could tackle the work I’d come in to do that day. After all, I had my shit together! I was a mover and shaker, a can-do gal. Triumph-in-the-face-of-adversity was kind of my thing.
But then my arms started to go numb. This was new. Now I really couldn’t breathe. I stood up and my vision blurred.
Have I been… poisoned? This was where my brain took me next. I shit you not. POISONED! OBVIOUSLY!
I staggered out of my office, leaned into a friend’s cubicle, and said, “Call my husband, please. There is something seriously wrong with me.” She wisely called the on-site nurse first. Then some security guards came to retrieve me in a wheelchair because I couldn’t walk, and they wheeled me down to the nurse’s office, where—and I’ll spare you the next, like, three hours of this story—I was told that no, I was not pregnant or poisoned, but I’d probably had a panic attack.
Seriously? I thought. This is the shit I have to deal with now? Panic attacks?
Again, sparing you the long and winding road from panic attack numero uno to quitting my corporate job, giving fewer fucks, writing my first book, and then writing the book you are holding in your hands, the lesson I learned was: Just because you are doing a ton of shit all day, every day, does NOT mean you have your shit together.
It means you are a high-functioning human to-do list potentially on the verge of total mental and physical collapse. A Simon, if you will.
So gather round, my little chipmunks, and hear me when I say:
• Getting your shit together does not mean packing your calendar to the brim just for the sake of packing your calendar to the brim.
• It does not mean sucking it up, doing everything on your to-do list, then doing everything on someone else’s to-do list, and doing it yesterday.
• And it does not mean sacrificing your mental and physical health to the cause.
What it does mean—for me, and for every Alvin, Simon, and Theodore on the spectrum—is managing your calendar and to-do list in such a way that the shit that needs doing gets done, and it doesn’t drive you crazy along the way.