So I'm a bit a of a spaz... or so they say. Partially due to the abnormally high amount energy I was born with and partially due to being a neurotic Virgo. Plus I think that the more you work out the more endorphins you release and the more prone you are to being a spaz; or that's a complete Type A excuse. So what they say is true. I once declared that I wasn't going to be a spaz anymore: wasn't going to carry on and on about inconsequential life events, dramatizing X and exaggerating Y at the drop of a dime. My friend Anthony looked at me like I was a crazy person and said, without hesitation:


See, "totally hot." And furthermore, if I'm laid back and calm, then I'm actually not me. This planet certainly does not need another boring calm person. (It actually doesn't even need another person. Not. Even. One.) Some circumstances make me more spastic than others. Like this one dude I know makes me a total and complete neurotic, controlling spaz attack to the point where I honestly had to cut off contact with him because I thought I might for real explode. He kept telling me to "relax." In that circumstance I actually did need to relax, but when he said it he sounded like my father who used to say, "Come on. RE-LAX." to me when I was upset when I was little, which made me even more upset.

Word from the wise: If someone is in a tizzy over something - whatever it is - the last thing they want to hear is "relax." That has never worked to relax someone in the history of the word relax. Never.

Something that has made me learn to chill is discovering that whatever meaning I put on something isn't actually real. It's my perspective. It's meaning I made up. So, for example, if I say to my tailor, "I think I gained weight since I bought these jeans." And he replies, "Well, then just eat less and go running." That does not mean that he is agreeing that I'm fat and need to lose weight. It doesn't mean anything actually. Nothing. I can spend the rest of the day spazzing out over being fat, or I can choose not to attach meaning on it and move on with my day.

I actually do need to lose five pounds though.

While I've accepted my fate as fairly high strung and borderline crazy, I've learned that in directing my spaz-energy to things I love to do - write, flirt, dance, shop, have sex, run - I create space to chill. But who the hell wants to chill when you could be doing all of things you love with fervor and zest? That's what I still don't get about learning to chill.

Emma Dinzebach