Anxiety and swollen feet

Well, I can finally say that I am settling in. I have yet to finish unloading my car, but it is in a state to take on passengers. (I should say just one passenger, but we could squish someone into the backseat now too.) This weekend I accomplished some of the last few official things that make me feel like I have come home. I visited a few more friends that I had yet to see, I found my ward (and that was a project, another blog entry entirely, involving condemned buildings and my limited Spanish speaking ability.) And I baked brownies. You can't call a place home until you have baked something there. Preferably an entire meal, but at least some dessert item. Oh yes, and the most important point of all, the real indicator of settling in, I have anxiety about absolutely nothing. Before, my anxiety could be pointed at something. For example: "where am I going to live" anxiety, "how am I going to pay the deposit" anxiety, "I should get a second job" anxiety, "the new people at work must hate me" anxiety, "nobody wants to hang out tonight" anxiety, even "first Sunday in a new ward" anxiety. All of them can be debilitating, justified, and real panic attacks, but they are in a certain sense better, simply because they can be directed somewhere. The anxiety I am feeling now (shall we call it "Settled in" anxiety?) has no direction whatsoever. I try to point it at something, but my logical and less depressed brain knows perfectly well that these are all merely excuses. I have a roof over my head, food to eat, friends to talk to, and many pairs of shoes. I don't actually need to feel anxious about anything. I can worry about my future, like everyone else, wonder if I am going to be at this job for the rest of forever, I could worry about the price of gas or hurricane season or the upcoming presidential elections, I can occupy my mind with all sorts of grown-up type stresses, like in the Little Prince, all of those figures in their various spheres that spend their time counting money, declaring themselves to be kings, and lighting lanterns, and I can be aware of the waste of brain cells that these things are. But the anxiety makes it so that when I do stop to enjoy the sunrise over the mountains, or when I stop and appreciate the amazing friendships I have found through the years, or even when I am grateful for my car, every time I sit in it, there is a nagging feeling, an unsettling of my brain, some sort of emotional ADD that takes over, and the peace that should come with financial security and general happiness escapes me. The anxiety tries to latch on to something, usually something ridiculous, like "The guy in that car looked at me funny" anxiety, or, "when I get out of bed, should I brush my teeth first or go potty first?" anxiety (that one has actually been known to keep me in bed for hours, writhing and wretching because my breath stinks and I have to pee so bad, but since I can't plan ahead, I can't manage to get out of bed to take care of things that would already be done if I would just do them. Please, please, please, tell me I am not the only one who has ever been confined to their bed until at least 9:30 am because they couldn't decide what minor task to accomplish first. Go ahead, make the crazy sign at the computer, then graciously tell me that you have done that too. Lie, if you have to, or I will have anxiety about that too!

All this is to say that today, my anxiety has bounced around in my head from "how will I watch conference when I don't have a TV?" to "Why are my feet swollen?" I know these things don't really matter. But seriously, It's Monday, I didn't run a marathon this weekend, in fact the most strenuous thing I did was play a few games of scrabble with my grandfather last night ( I lost one, terribly, but won another by enough so that i am sure he was letting me win.) So why don't my feet fit into my cute shoes? I almost called in sick to work because of it...