Unhooked & Unwound

"Did you take a Xanax before you picked up?"

"Hmmm?"

It's around 10:30 on a weekday morning. I never sleep this late, especially during the week, but I'm taking a well-deserved day off after nearly two months of running around like a crazy person. Typically I'm a bolt-out-of-bed, get dressed, start crossing shit off the to-do list.

This is not one of those mornings. I'm foggy and sleepy. I barely managed to find my bathrobe and get the coffee started before Skype started ringing.

"You're just, I don't know. I never see you this relaxed."

I smile around my coffee cup.

"Me either."

***

Crazy person is my default setting. 

I don't necessarily mean anxiety and depression are my default setting, but that I have a tendency to like time tables, structure, order to my days. I delight in crossing things off my to-do list (and I always have a to-do list) and my weeks are typically full of meetings for my various volunteer gigs, runs with my running partner, dinner with friends, and on and on. They're good things, things that I enjoy doing, but the end result is that I live by my Google calender, that I dislike last minute plans, and that I spend too much time on my cell phone.

So, maybe crazy isn't quite right. Tightly wound is my default setting. 

***

The noise I make when I let down the zipper on my dress is indecent.

"Um, do you want some time alone?"

I'm video chatting with one of my college roommates. I've stepped off camera to get out of my work clothes. It's been a long day in high heels and a structured dress. The satisfaction in stepping out of them and into a soft pair of cotton shorts and a tank top is extreme.

I settle down in front of the laptop again. "No. I'm fine. It was a relief to get out of that dress."

"I'll never understand why you spend a whole day in clothing that's uncomfortable."

I smile. "It's just one of the things you do when you have a grown-up job, I guess."

"How do you manage to unwind at all when you're dressed like that?"

I stretch, wondering if "luxurious" in an onomatopoeia. Whatever. Getting out of those clothes feels luxurious.

"I don't."

***

"Listen, I just want you to know that I think you're about to fall out of your dress."

During the summer you will rarely find me, during my leisure hours, in anything other than a sundress or a bathing suit. Especially on days like today, when my only plans are stretching out on the beach with a novel and playing lawn games.

I glance down. "You," I tell my teammate, "are a real gentleman. Perhaps the last here in Central Minnesota." I duck behind a tree and make some adjustments to my dress (he may be a gentleman, but in this moment I'm certainly not much of a lady) and have to strain to hear his response.

"Oh, trust me, if I had any interest at all in your decolletage, I wouldn't have said a damn thing. "

I come back from behind the tree, griping. "This is what happens when I wear something that's not reinforced with whalebone."

If he was anyone else the look he gives me would border on a leer. "Honey, I get the feeling that even whalebone would have a hard time keeping you in line."

"Oh, hush."

***

My body is unruly.

It's not a value judgement, merely an observation. I gave up thinking I had any control over my hair a long time ago (my stylist once described it as "exuberant"). I have these breasts and hips that are all over the place.

I'm not necessarily complaining about having breasts and hips, but it tends to complicate things. First of all, when you're not wearing much you tend to look like a Picasso nude, all soft curves and stomach. Second, Holy Jesus it's hard to, um, rein everything in and look professional rather than professional.

You cannot possibly imagine the amount of buckles, snaps, and reinforced stitching that goes into keeping everything within acceptable bounds.

***

My body scares the hell out of me. 

In addition to being unruly, it's a little, well, unpredictable. It announces itself in situations where I'd rather just be throwing bean bags or soaking up Vitamin D on a raft. It reacts in ways and to situations that leave me unwound and thinking holyshitwhatwasthat? 

I mean, you know, once I can think at all. 

***

"I'm serious, I just watched you drink an entire pot of coffee. Normally you'd be bouncing off the walls and trying to get off the phone so you could go run ten miles or something." 

"I'm actually thinking about going back to bed when we're finished."  

"I'm not judging! I'm just saying that it's unusual for you."

"Let's say I'm starting to understand the value of being unhooked and unwound."