It is almost impossible to sit here in this cozy little conference room in the office and type up my column for Saturday’s paper — especially while my subject hovers restlessly in the corner of the room, staring me down like a 1,600 lb. fighting bull that’s just itching to charge directly at me.
There really is no such thing as ignoring anxiety, contrary to popular belief. Most days, it seems like the sanest option is to endure the deadly tango; let it run right at you and hope its horn doesn’t puncture your stomach. Otherwise, there’s no way around it.
Obviously, I am not a bullfighter. Chances are you’ll never see me rolling the dice between life and death in a massive bullring somewhere in Spain. But I do tend to push my luck as far as it’s willing to go — and what better way to describe that acidic feeling of anxiety and doom than to paint it as the monstrous bull that it always really was in hindsight?
Maybe you disagree… But I know the face of that hideous beast whenever I see it — and if the shoe fits, then why not?
The real problem is that these days, I have been confusing invisibility for invincibility. That’s the thing about anxiety. Unless you’re staring into the bathroom mirror in the middle of some manic meltdown and watching yourself ooze drops of sweat as big as bullets, you can’t actually see the pesky little devil.
You can’t track down its address on Google and bang your fists on its front door. There is no supervisor you can call and scream at like a banshee. Nothing. The reality of dealing with the dangers of an invisible enemy is that it can get you anytime, anywhere.
It can start to take a heavy toll after a while. It’s like holding the lit fuse of a firecracker or chugging a bottle of Coca-Cola after eating a dozen Mentos — eventually, you just know that it’s going to blow. You can’t just see the writing on the wall — it’s like a cosmic uneasiness that you can feel deep in the marrow of your bones.
And before I get ahead of myself, I should make at least one thing crystal clear. This is not some half-clever plug for therapy or some other abstract, thinly veiled attempt at calling for help. Instead, it’s more along the jagged lines of an exercise in professional complaining. Maybe you can relate.
Indeed, in an era of TikTok “Influencers” and crackpot Facebook remedies, the notion of therapy feels like a hopelessly expensive wash. Oh well…
My methods for dealing with these rotten circumstances are not the best. Usually, it involves bursting into the corner of my chief of staff’s cubicle like the Kool-Aid Man, where I basically just scream at God and expect him to listen attentively. Don’t get me wrong, this absolutely helps, but it’s not the most productive move to make in the middle of the newsroom.
It helps the problem but does not solve it. There are potentially healthier outlets, like painting or running or meditating — but I currently don’t have the time for most of that, and they all utterly pale in comparison to the way I’d rather deal with anxiety and doom and despair, but I couldn’t think of anything explosive enough until I headed over to Lawrence one Friday night to talk my cousin, a young cop with a budding interest in firearms.
“What do you mean you can’t think of anything?” he said. “You haven’t tried going to the range?”
“Not yet,” I shrugged.
“That’s crazy!” He leaped off the edge of his bed and slapped the side of my arm. “I was on the fence once, myself. But now it’s my favorite… As soon as you pull the trigger, you’re going to love it. Trust me!”
It was already quarter to five that night. There was no time to lose. I tried protesting on the basis of traffic, but he wasn’t having it. “Nonsense, it’s just a quick drive up to Manchester,” he said. “It’s nothing.”
Then we hopped in the car, cruising up toward Manchester. The drive was easy and quick. But when we got there, all it looked like was some massively wide redbrick building with a giant sign that read “Manchester Firing Lane.”
We hurried inside to find an armory of pistols, rifles and other automatic weapons draped along the walls, like an armory lost to time. The people behind the counter had a kind of cautious kindness that made you forget they were armed, trained, and basically ready for anything, like overly polite marines.
My cousin facilitated the session with the guy behind the counter while I admired the guns. When it was done, he shuffled me off to one of the range’s 14 firing lanes. We put on the necessary protection for our eyes and ears, then took our spots near the end with a couple of Sig Sauer P322s as the targets sat about 30 feet away.
Then came the moment of truth. I planted my feet and raised the pistol accordingly, feeling every muscle tighten as my mind started to race. Then came the silence, easy breathing as I focused on the target before me. I paused, waiting — and then, just like that…Bang.
A rush of light and a quick, hollow boom roared out from the gun. It was a fantastic blast of fire and fun, a melody of mayhem and madness. The whole ordeal was such a raw jolt that I had finally forgotten about that rotten beast that society calls anxiety. Faster than you can snap your fingers, it was already gone.
The shot itself was mediocre — let’s not get carried away, here — but it was the impact that really mattered.
“What do you think?” He looked over and hollered, peeling the earmuffs off his head. “Didn’t I tell you?”
I stood back, admiring the controlled chaos of the matter. “I think I’m going to have to tell my chief of staff about this,” I said. “He’s going to want to hear about this.”
