The Romantic Comedy

My mom taught me a trick when I was a kid. Close your eyes, lie stiff on your back, breathe in, and count to five. Then, tense your whole body as hard as you possibly can. Once you breathe out, imagine a venomous snake crawling up your body, from foot to head, biting you everywhere on the way up, paralyzing and relaxing every muscle.

Usually, when I can't get to sleep, this trick works like a charm. It helps reset my body; mind over matter, or some bullshit like that.

No trick, pills, or alcoholic drink will help me get to sleep tonight.

I’ve spent five sweaty hours tossing and turning, that ache in my stomach keeping me hunched in a fetal position. My neck groans in protest from the tension in my spine, caused by my worrying. The ceiling fan wobbles and squeaks in a way that is both comforting and irritating. Heat bubbles on my back, and sweat pools beneath my silk pajama set. My toes escape the covers, peeking out like a cheating child playing hide-and-seek. No matter how long I close my eyes, use my mom’s trick, or lie on my back like my grandma at her wake, I just cannot fall asleep.

All because I watched a movie.

Yes. A movie.

And before you think I’m some wuss who is afraid of scary movies, I’m not. It wasn't supposed to be a scary movie.

It was even more pathetic.

It was a Rom-Com.

Rugged single mom who works her ass off at her corporate nine-to-five job can't take an evening to go out with way too handsome early forties yoga instructor who is a bit too granola for her. They coincidentally run into each other too many times, butt heads on stupid stuff, then fall in love. The male lead was just the right amount of nonchalant and passionate, and the female lead wasn’t too pretty to where you couldn’t picture yourself in her shoes. It was your average, run-of-the-mill, Romantic Comedy movie.

So, why would a happy, feel-good movie give me shit-inducing anxiety?

Well, as I lie next to my husband, who in his own right is a ‘Mr.Perfect’, I can’t help to wonder if this is it. My life is perfect, on paper; I have the husband, the house, the kids, the dogs, the car, and the PTSA membership. I have it all.

But then why do these damn movies make me feel like there should be more? Like life is supposed to be a series of dominoes falling into place, each click sending the next cascading into effect. Like a wand is waved, and every moment is magical and perfectly imperfect? Like my husband should be manly and brooding, but also romantic and in touch with his feminine side. Life feels so hollow and empty after watching such a spectacle.

My mother taught me that handy trick to sleep when I was going to sleep-away camp. I was an anxious child, and she knew sleep was a delicate and sore subject for me. I had to have my teddy, a white noise machine, three heavy blankets, a pillow on my head, and an eye mask, just to even begin the process of sleep. So, she knew that my setup wasn't going to fly at a camp with twenty-some other girls. I would have been ridiculed to filth. Hence, the trick.

And it worked. For the camp.

Then I came home and went straight back to my over-the-top sleep setup like a druggie who needed a fix.

I still sleep like that to this day. Anxiety has strange comforts, and apparently, it's a lot of layers when you sleep.

Why must wandering minds be punished with the curse of anxiety? I would like to think that people with minds working on overdrive would cure cancer or make rockets or something. I mean, I’m sure there are astrophysicists with anxiety.

But I am not.

I’m a bank teller with a fear of impending doom. What’s the money gonna do, kill me? I mean, there are bank robberies…

Everything becomes a flight, fight, or freeze situation for me.

Tonight, my body wants to flee.

I feel trapped for no good reason. My brain knows watching a movie about a perfect romance isn't a good reason to go into a spiral about my own, but I guess my instincts aren't connected to that part of my brain.

My marriage isn’t loveless. My husband is wonderful. He’s caring and thoughtful and hardworking and kind. Now, is my love life like that movie I just watched? No. But is it toxic and abusive? Also, no.

My head is pounding now.

I can’t remember the last time I was able to sleep despite my exhaustion. I sit up to take a sip from my obnoxiously large and trendy water bottle sitting on my nightstand before I push my three blankets onto my husband and get up from my anxiety prison. My feet are heavy as I step on the freezing hardwood floors and stumble into the bathroom.

I flick on the lights. Its beams sting my eyes, and the buzz of the shower fan jars my ears. I need to be jolted from this trepidity.

Gazing into the mirror, my eyes meet my own in an all too familiar glance.

I splash cold water onto my face, only to wash away the grease from my sweat, and not the anxiety that caused it. My therapist says cold temperatures can reset the nervous system. I say that I am now just anxious and dripping wet.

My knees buckle, and I brace my palms on the counter. By opening and closing my eyes too many times, and by doom-scrolling on my bright phone screen, I've developed a strange tunnel vision. If you know, you know.

Time to return to my palace of defeat.

My mind's racing, but my eyes can't weep.

I am so tired, but I can’t sleep.

All because of a damn Romantic Comedy.