a list of things happening this week that make me anxious

Sundays are not easy for us anxious folk. With that, these are just a few of the many things that are causing me to rely on my Cymbalta extra hard this week:

• The Virginia gubernatorial race: it’s the battle of two generic looking white men! One of them is a Democrat doctor named Ralph. People aren’t super crazy about him. The other is Ed. He’s a racist bigot, and people aren’t super excited about him either. “Sarah, how can you be so anxious about a race with two unexciting, generally unlikeable candidates?” Well, partially because this election falls the day before the one-year anniversary of the Worst Day Ever (TM), bringing back some serious PTSD (see episode 1 of Stranger Things 2 for an improper diagnosis of this!). Also, the race is very close, and polls are pretty inconclusive (not that I trust the polls, because Worst Day Ever happened). That aside, the race is a Big Deal (not TM) because a) it is a referendum on Trumpism (Gillespie, the Republican candidate, has embraced Trump’s anti-immigrant populist rhetoric) and b) whoever wins will decide important things about the future of the state, like whether or not to expand Medicaid. Oh and also, I just learned that if Gillespie wins over Northam, Virginia would become the 33rd state to be fully controlled by the GOP. It takes 2/3 of state legislatures to approve a constitutional convention. Though I completed my college math requirement with a symmetry course, I am algebra competent enough to know that 2/3 of 50 is 33.3. Dope.

Ralph and Ed, sharing a 'sca

• The possibility that I win the Dear Evan Hansen Lottery and can’t get out of work to go see Ben Platt before he leaves in two weeks

• The chance that fall weather will never come and I’ll have to shave my legs through November and December and January and February and never get a pant-wearing, sweater-donning, hot-tea drinking respite.

• The notion that life will pass me by while I wait in line at Trader Joe’s, and that people will find out that I use Trader Joe’s pie crust to bake pies (shit.)

• The high probability that the new tax plan will pass and I will not be able to understand the implications of it because I still don’t understand how taxes work

• The prospect that my roommate will find out that I lied about how much diet soda I drink and judge me for it (Zoe, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry I let you down but also not sorry that Fresca is fucking delicious).

• My job: because how is this week different from all other weeks