Table of Contents
As far as vaping news goes there isn’t much to tell about this week. Our review and interview for the Big Daddy Vapor took up most of my time, and beginning a couple of other reviews did as well. This week’s column is devoted to what’s been going on inside my own head. Feel free to skip this week’s ‘Vaping with Julia’ because it should be called “Inside Julia’s Mind”.
“Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you”
Exhilaration
The stock photo project I was hired to do is going great. The first batch of photos was sent to the client right before I came back to Florida and I heard back from them this week…they loved them! I am supposed to return on the 29th of March for another 2-week stay to finish up and the client wants to extend the project, double it actually, so it looks as though I might be in the Boston area longer than I thought I would. Hopefully I will be able to do what I did last time; go up for several days, come back for several days, and on and on until it’s completed.
Since moving down here early last year I had cut way back on shooting for clients so this was exciting for me. And I am brining a certain someone back with me so I won’t feel like a fish out of water while I’m there, despite the fact that the Boston area is where I’m from.
Depression
Well, maybe not a full-on depression but certainly, as John would say, a ‘funk’ (love that word!). I wasn’t even sure why though. It wasn’t only me either. For two days the whole staff was in a ‘funk’. Only no one would admit it. Things around here got quiet. There was a lot less talking, laughing, kissing, and a lot less smiling. We just sort of got up, had coffee, showered, and worked all day in a haze. It was really strange.
Personally, I think what happened was the ‘contagion’ effect. One of us, I’m not sure who because no one will even admit to being in a funk, passed it on to everyone else. Hell, we are always together morning noon and night. We work together, play together, eat together, sleep together (well, you know what I mean), so its like getting a cold. One person catches it and passes it on to everyone else. That is what I think happened. Until…
…While watching ‘Community’ last night (all of us, naturally) started laughing at something Chang did and the funk was gone. The rest of the night was just like it was before the funk swept in and shut us all down. We stayed up past midnight behaving like we always did, which I won’t get into, and woke up this morning like a huge dark cloud had been lifted.
Anxiety
I’m always feeling a little anxious, but this was different. All week long the anxiety score was higher than usual. Factoring in the stock photo project and that mysterious funk which I’m sure played a part in it, the anxiety felt like I was always looking for the other shoe to drop. Like waiting to hear bad news, but the news doesn’t come.
So yesterday morning I set aside some time to go over everything I did all week. I pondered every move I made. Then it hit me; The Woman. I had watched “The Woman” on Monday night with Netflix.
This movie freaked me out something awful. I hate movies in this genre and only watched it because the gang talked me into it. Horribly, I watched the entire movie mesmerized at every frame. I won’t spoil it for you other than to say that if you do see this movie, especially as a woman, it will change you forever. This kind of evil induces a kind of severe anxiety where you feel completely helpless, vulnerable, and scared witless. It’s the kind of movie you wish you could un-see. But you can’t, and you know you can’t.
If you did see the movie I’d love to hear what you think about it. For me, well, I guess it stayed with me all week long because there was an underlying anxiety, a jumpiness that I am not used to feeling and once I remembered that I watched it, the whole thing felt connected. I just knew this was the source of it. Now that I think about it, I wonder if this was the catalyst to the ‘funk’ we all went through. Damn that movie!
Uncertainty
I guess a lot of us always feel a little uncertain these days. The world is changing, getting more and more dangerous with each passing day. The country is changing, for the worse, as we glide into a ‘new normal’ of being less than what we were. As individuals and as a country, we’ve become ‘less’. That right there would give anyone a kick of uncertainty.
Still, the level of uncertainty this week has also been higher than usual. Of course when you pile on the rest of it, the exhilaration, the funk, the anxiety, all of it can lead to a higher level of uncertainty in my life. But there was more. And it was only through some serious meditation about it that I think I have it figured out.
While I was away, in New Hampshire and Boston, I was “alone”. I felt alone anyway. And for the first time I was actually lonely. That’s not like me, I used to love being alone. Now, that’s no longer true. I don’t want to get into the details, but realizing that something, or someone, was missing generated this feeling of being alone. What was missing was apparently much more important to me than I ever thought. That is a scary feeling.
What I was taking for granted, what I thought would be there for me, suddenly became more like “Will it be there?” and “How can I make sure of that?” These are things I don’t usually think about, or at least I didn’t. And, now I am filled with an uncertainty about where I stand. Will I screw it up? Have I screwed it up? You know what I mean?
Etc.
Okay, enough that. Suddenly this all looks like I’m feeling sorry for myself…and that is the last thing I want to do.
Lots of great stuff coming up for next week. Great new and exciting hardware reviews, a couple of new eLiquid reviews, and a couple of very cool new giveaways begin next week as well. That’s really what I should have written about today…but I didn’t. Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe.
jb
