Why Do I Have To Make Things So Difficult?

 I have things that I want to write, but it seems that God has different plans for my blog. I have twice in the last week or so started on topics and struggled to piece together what I want to say, only to stop an hour or two later, staring at a whole lot of aimless ramblings. So I start a new post not knowing what I am writing, and I finish that post in an hour or less. Today I guess I am writing something that I didn't plan to write, so we'll see what comes out.

This morning I had to run some errands. These errands involved the requirement that I engage with people directly which, in this age of Covid fear, is not always a simple matter. This is further complicated by the fact that I refuse to wear a face diaper. I generally just tell businesses that I am exempt. I do not have a doctor's note, nor even an officially diagnosed condition, but I know my body and I know that I have some lung issues from previous employment and I do not wish to damage my lungs any further by re-breathing my own exhaust. I social distance and I try to not be jerk about my position. Many businesses have also accepted the fact that they are not legally allowed to request to see a letter of exemption or even ask for an explanation for the exemption so it is generally not a problem.

My first stop today was to drop my car at the body shop to have some work done after a minor fender bender. The people there accepted that I was not going to wear a mask and my engagement with them was quick and easy. 

My next stop was to get some gas in my vehicle. I use cash almost exclusively. I started to do so around a year ago. Don't ask me to explain why because I don't know that there is only one reason for it but a sum of numerous reasons. Anyway, because I use cash I generally enter the gas bar and pay for my purchase first so that the attendant can set the pump to the correct amount and if there is any mistake made, it is on the attendant, not me. I entered the small kiosk and there were two gentlemen working there; one behind the glass partition and one stocking the shelves in front of the glass. The one in front asked if I had a mask, to which I stated that I am exempt. The gentleman asked if I had a letter, my response to which was that I was not required by law to show anybody a letter of exemption, which he wrongfully stated was incorrect. Long story short, he refused to serve me and escorted me from the building.

At this point I was rather...annoyed is too soft, but angry is too hard, so somewhere in between...as I drove to another gas station nearby. At this location, full serve, by the time I reached the building the gas attendant had already started putting gas in my vehicle, so they had no choice but to allow me in the building, however I was asked to wait outside until the vehicle was filled due to my lack of facial excrement catching apparatus, which I complied with - again, trying to not be a jerk. The rest of that engagement went fine.

I then had to make a couple of other stops, which should have been one stop but things did not go smoothly for reasons other than Covid fear, but I did have to enter a bank and deal with a teller. A little back story here, I received an email from the manager of this bank a couple of weeks ago stating that unless my family members wore masks, we would be denied service. This was after an altercation that my wife and son had at one of their branches while using the ATM, when my family members were approached by a bank employee and told to wear masks, to which my wife responded that both members were exempt (legitimately) and she offered to show the exemption letters to prove it, a step that is not legally required. The bank employee continued to berate them a couple more times while backing away and they were finally left to complete their business.

Now back to this morning. I knew I had to enter the bank but at this point my patience for dealing with people was already expended, so I grabbed a facial tissue and covered my face with that for the two minutes that it took to complete my business. I was offered a mask to use, which I refused, but other than that the transaction went ahead with no issues.

I still had one more stop to make at the post office located in our local store. My wife had already told me that they were not recognizing medical mask exemptions (this is illegal) and this was confirmed with a notice at the front doors stating as much - I read about two lines and I knew the gist of the rest. So I used my handy facial tissue again and I entered. I only needed to drop a postage paid parcel at the desk, so my business required me being in the building for less than thirty seconds, but again I felt that today it was better to feign submission just to get things done, for the safety of all involved, and that safety had nothing to do with the risk from a tiny virus.

That was my morning, but that is only background to what I am really writing about today.

I am not a timid person. I know what I believe and I know why I believe it. I can defend my beliefs against anyone, I have even been known to argue theology with pastors and cause them to back down from their position if not actually to achieve their concession of my position. People don't like to be proven wrong, but I have seldom had to deal with that personally, much to the chagrin of my wife and kids when they think they have me beat - this fact may not be beneficial to me in the long run. I don't want to sound boastful about it, but that is how it is. If I take a stand on an issue, that means that I have researched it and I know the material to defend my stance. If I cannot defend my position due to a lack of broad knowledge on the topic, then I will state my opinion if asked, but I will not argue it aggressively, especially against someone who has their information in order. Needless to say this has led to many ideological confrontations with others and I can hold my own in an ideological argument, and I know how it feels when a disagreement has become a little more heated than would be desired.

I mention all of this because by the time I got home after all of my errands I was not feeling well. It felt like my heart was racing a little bit, but a quick check of my pulse seemed to indicate maybe at best a slight quickening from it's normal rate. My chest felt a little constricted, and it still does a little bit even as I write this, which is over three hours after my most aggressive altercation, which didn't even end up with raised voices by the end of it. There is only one thing that I can make of this: I am having an anxiety attack.

I can't wrap my head around this. I don't deal with severe anxiety. I may get nervous for things that I am pursuing, the results of which I have no control over, like someone might feel before a job interview for example. That is normal - what I am feeling today is not. I have been perplexed at the reactions of people to everything Covid for months now, but I long ago put my worries about where this province and this country are going into God's hands and I have only had to deal with dismay at the lies that I hear from the media knowing that people actually believe what they are being told. I have not had much anxiety over this "pandemic", but I am quite certain that this is a panic attack.

This is brand new territory for me and I don't have the answers to this one. I assume that most people would respond to me that my anxiety is probably due to my resistance to conform to what is considered acceptable public behaviour and that if I would just comply with the mask mandate, then I would have no problems. My response to that would be "You don't know me". If I am anything other than myself then there is an internal break down. I know that I am being disingenuous to who I really am and that is a state that I cannot and will not maintain. If I know something is wrong, then I cannot pretend that it is right - I am not wired that way, for better or for worse. This means that I will still not wear a slobber bib over my face just to be able to function in public unharassed.

I have been self-employed for most of the last 14 years, which means that I have been choosing and traveling my own path for a long time, but right now there is intense public pressure to travel with the masses, a path which is difficult to veer off of once you begin to travel it. I picture it as being in the middle of a stampede. You don't necessarily know why you are running, or where you are running to, but you are caught in the flow, you can't stop and you can't escape. I wonder if this anxiety that I am feeling is a result of months of accumulated outside pressures from people that I do not trust telling me to conform to something that I do not agree with. Part of why I wonder this is because the anxiety grew as I continued to run my errands with no further intense issues, but this could have been in part due to my decision to at least fake compliance in order to avoid confrontation. 

It may be more honest to say that my fake compliance was the root of my anxiety, not merely a contributing factor.

I am not the kind of person who can change my personality based upon the company that I am keeping. So now I may need to experiment a little bit, though I don't want to. I may need to submit and comply the next time I venture out and see if this feeling comes over me again. Then I may need to buck the system as I have been doing and see how I feel after that. It may very well be that this new anxiety stems from my own actions to subvert my own will. If that is the case, I cannot allow myself to continue down the path of least resistance. I guess I cannot just do things the easy way.