Can't hardly wait - posted at 08:14

There's something strange about that emotion of anticipation. We're all familiar with it, with the jittery excitement that accompanies something that you're really looking forward to. It's even been posited by scientists that the feeling of anticipation is often even more pleasurable than the actual event that one is looking forward to.

However, when that delicious feeling of coming excitement is missing from your emotional repertoire it can leave you feeling less than human inside. Until it's gone, you don't really understand exactly how key that facet of human experience is in making you feel, well, human.

This is the quandary I've found myself in over the last couple of years. Best as I can figure, it's the result of a defense mechanism that's locked itself into place during some of the toughest periods of my life that were alternately absolutely ecstatic and totally depressing. I can trace the roots back to the time when Cory and I were stuck in the depths of a long-distance relationship. I mean, talk about emotional ups and downs! Our relationship itself was remarkably stable because we put a lot of work into it and we really are right for each other, so that's not what I mean when I talk about ups and downs. I'm referring to the frenzy of delight I'd whip myself into before we got to see each other after three months of separation and the despair so heavy it literally felt like a body-crushing weight I'd feel when it was time to say goodbye again in, oh, about a week. Add to that the Air Force's carrot-dangling (yeah, I know, I'm writing about work on the Internet, a classic Dooce-ism, to which I would reply "suck it") when it came to actually getting Cory and me stationed together, which meant that what was supposed to be a one-year separation turned into a two-year separation and then ultimately a three-year separation and what started out as a long-distance courtship turned into a long-distance marriage. Do I even need to tell you what a horrible emotional roller-coaster full of gleeful anticipation and forlorn heartbreak that was? Yeah, I didn't think so.

This has all resulted a frustrating deadened feeling I've had a 90% unsuccessful time shaking. I may even need to pay someone to listen to me talk about my problems to shake it. I try so hard to feel excited about things (here's a partial list) and it just doesn't come the way it's supposed to. How do you force your mind to get the dopamine flowing (the neurotransmitter I assume is active in anticipation - correct me if I'm wrong) when your mind is trying to protect you from yourself? I've got tons of issues and handy little defense mechanisms that come hand-in-hand with them, so I think I'm pretty good at recognizing them by now.

So imagine my mingled surprise and delight when I found myself not just excited but literally coming apart at my very seams when I booked my flight to go see Shudder To Think's concert in New York City. What was this? I was internally jittery with anticipation, my brain going full-throttle to a complete SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!, barely able to contain everything that I was feeling. I wanted to sing from rooftops, not only because I was going to go see a concert I've been jonseing for since I was thirteen, but because my brain had just proven itself not totally broken! I was excited about being excited. I don't fully understand why I'm so jubilant - yes, I've been passionate about music in general and this band in particular my whole life, but I was also passionate about everything else on that list of mine. Why should I be so pumped about going to see some strangers play a bunch of songs when I couldn't muster up a fraction of that feeling when I was about to see my freakin' husband for the first time in three months?

I've no clue what the answer to this particular question is. The best I can figure is that this is something wholly new to get jazzed about. There are no loved ones waiting for me, but neither are there painful good-byes. There is just an event - a much-longed for event, but an event nonetheless. Maybe from my brain's point of view, this isn't something that it needs to protect me from. Plus it's a brand new experience. I mean, I'm traveling to New York City and I'm doing it by myself (this is one of those times I'm incredibly grateful to be an introvert. I don't think this would be half as fun if I was one of those extroverts that make up the bulk of the population). This is an adventure if I've ever heard of one. Like I mentioned in my previous post, my family is a little worried, but perhaps in reading this they will understand why I'm so keen to take the risk and do it. If it means that I finally get to welcome back some of that emotion that my life has been so bereft of for so long, I'm definitely willing to take it on.