The book that launched a thousand anxieties

The book "Eat, Pray, Love" was recommended to me recently. It's a NYT best seller and supposed to be an amazing story of a woman, who at 30, realized her "perfect life" was not what she wanted, so she left her husband and spent an amazing year living 4 months in Italy, 4 month in an Ashram in India, and 4 months in Bali. I picked up the book the other night at one of our regular excursions to get the fuck out of the heat and sit in an air conditioned Barnes and Noble for a while sipping an iced coffee from Starbucks. And while it may be this amazing book.. I just can not read it at the moment.

I've talked openly before about my battles with anxiety and the fact that I pretty much have the disposition of a nervous chihuahua. Most of the time I handle my freak outs quite nicely, and the average person would really just say I can be a bit "high strung" at times. But they have never laid awake inside my brain while pregnant, hormonal and Ambien-less at 1 AM with me before.

Why is it that things are ALWAYS so much worse at 1 AM?

Let me say I miss my Ambien. And my wine. Okay, and my occasional Xanax. My first trimester I was so exhausted that it all didn't matter, but my 2nd tri I just couldn't sleep. With the help of the occasional, pregnancy approved, Tylenol PM, I developed the habit of reading myself to sleep. Literally, reading until I nodded off, book in hand. Well, nodding off to a book about a woman in an anxiety filled crises really not the best type of book to read as you are falling asleep and trying to AVOID a mental meltdown.

First, Lucas wakes up around midnight. I go in and settle him down and then get back into bed. Then I had to pee (man, I will not miss the pregnancy midnight bathroom trips), then Mick starts growling at some NOISE (probably the freaking livestock factory going on behind our house - did I tell you that one of our neighbors, the ones who already have 2 turkeys, decided to add a freaking ROOSTER to their little brood?) and Jason, well GOD BLESS HIM and his amazing sleeping ability, is fast asleep and I'm wide awake with the brain going 1000 MPH.

General pre-baby freak outs lead to thoughts of all the things I can't do now with a kid and new baby (like take off to Bali for 4 months) which lead to thoughts about bills, money, preschool and over due oil changes. Not before long I'm practically hyperventilating into my pillow with dizzying thoughts of personal and financial ruin trotting through my head and using all my power not to wake Jason up to yell at him and curse his damn sperm for making me so hormonally insane.

Which leads me to the reason why, 89 pages into it, I gave the book away yesterday.

I'm sure its a fabulous tale, but one that will need to wait until my hormones are in proper balance again. Looks like I'll be sticking to a strict diet of chick lit for awhile.