GABA or Not

GABA or NOT

January 1,

Dear Diary,

Well, today’s the day. I am totally determined. No more negativity. I am making a promise to myself to look at the bright side of things. I will follow the rule of “no expectations, no disappointments. I feel better already just having made that decision. I’m sure I can do it. As the saying goes, I’ve set my mind to it. The minute I feel a negative thought crossing my mind, I will simply shove it out. I will say, “Nope! You are not allowed.”

January 4^th,

Dear Diary,

Things are going well so far. I went out and bought myself a diffuser and some lavender oil. I read online that the aroma of lavender oil puts you in a good mood. I just hope I don’t overdo it. Oops! That was negative, wasn’t it? Let me restate this. I’m quite sure that lavender oil is going to uplift my mood. I will use it in the diffuser every day. I think tomorrow I’ll go to the park and walk around just breathing in the clean air and admiring the lovely trees. 

January 10^th,

Dear Diary,

I am learning how to keep my spirits up. I’m very proud of myself. When I went to the park a few days ago, I wasn’t paying attention and I stepped in dog shit in my new Nike’s. I caught myself starting to go ballistic, glaring at the dog owner who didn’t clean up after his dog. He was too busy talking on his cellphone. Instead, I just slipped off my shoe, walked over to the water fountain with one shoe in my hand and rinsed it off. When the owner saw me, he looked askance as if I was a gross person for washing off my shoe in the fountain. I almost said, “It’s because of your fucking dog, you asshole!” But I am proud to say that I caught myself and just shrugged my shoulders, saying, “I guess I should have noticed the dog poop.” I did feel my heart beating a bit more rapidly than usual, but I just put my shoe back on and walked through the park to the end and back. When I got back, he and his dog were gone.

January 15,

Dear Diary,

Today was a day I’m mostly proud of. I say mostly, because I caught myself almost berating the barista at Starbucks. I told her my name, which is Penelope. She asked me to repeat it three times. Then, I spelled it for her. I suppose I could have said Penny. But I hate the name Penny. My name isn’t Penny. It’s Penelope. She rolled her eyes as she was writing down my name on the cup. Mind you, her eyes were coated in heavy mascara, and she had on false eyelashes that were half an inch long. Besides that, her arms were covered in tats and the roots of her brown hair were showing under the platinum dye job. I watched her as she wrote Penny on the cup. What I wanted to do was grab the cup and rewrite my name correctly, but I stopped myself. I took a deep, healing breath and ferreted around in my purse for a GABA tablet. I love my GABA. It really does calm me down. I popped it into my mouth before I got my latte, and it started to work just as she called out Penny in her squeaky voice. I noted that her name on her nametag was Candy. Of course, it was.

January 18,

Dear Diary,

Tonight could have been a disaster, but thanks to my resolution, it wasn’t. My upstairs neighbors decided at 1 a.m. to play heavy metal music on full blast. I stopped myself from resorting to what I have done in the past. Even though banging on the ceiling with my broomstick has worked in the past, I thought that this was way too negative. I’m so proud of myself. I went into my cupboard, grabbed a box of brownie mix and made a batch of brownies. And then I actually went upstairs with this peace offering. The guys, who, I call The Two Nothings, were blown away. Of course, I could never tell them my nickname for them, but I know that if I have secret nicknames for people it helps me not get irritated with them. And, yes, it worked! This positivity got them to turn down their music. They even offered me a joint. I declined though because I thought I might forget to be positive and blurt out something like “yeah, you fucking boring as hell assholes with no musical taste…just be grateful I don’t call the cops.” Anyway, they even smiled at me in the parking lot in the morning.

January 30,

Dear Diary,

I had an opportunity to bite my tongue today at Walgreens. I was just there to pick up my blood pressure medicine and of course the line was long. I suppose they were doing their best. There were 6 people ahead of me in line. One woman had a walker and seemed like she was about to keel over. A guy behind me was sitting in one of the two chairs and offered her his chair. I thought, “Wow, what a nice guy.” That was until he opened his mouth and continued to blather about how Covid was just a bad cold, how he wasn’t going to let the government stick something in his body that didn’t necessarily work for sure and that it caused heart attacks. The woman with the walker was in my opinion stupidly engaging with him, trying to be reasonable, giving her viewpoint, but he wasn’t having any of it. He just continued to grouse non-stop about Walgreens, how no one wanted to work anymore, how all the prices were going up…blah, blah, blah. I was thinking, Jesus, this piece of shit just likes to complain. He probably starts right up first thing in the morning..and then I started feeling sorry for him..But hey, isn’t this how I used to be before my great transformation? Then the woman in the walker and he both said they try to go look at the ocean every day and are grateful that they can do that. Wow! That was cool. Even cooler was that now I was third in line after 25 minutes. And I thought, I’m so lucky that I don’t need a walker yet and I know not to be grumpy 24/7. When I got to the counter and they said they didn’t have my meds ready yet, I just took a deep breath. I smiled and politely asked, although I could feel the muscles in my jaw clenching, “When might they be ready?” The kid (he couldn’t have been older than 22) pushed his glasses up on his nose, squinting at the computer and said, “Oh, probably in three days.” I swallowed a few choice words, stuck my hand in my purse and took out another GABA. 

February 2,

Dear Diary,

I’ve been feeling so good about myself that I decided I should go visit my mother in the nursing home. Actually, I read online that if you cross your ankles at the same time as you touch your forefingers and thumbs together to form a circle inside of each other and place them in your lap, that no bad vibes can get to you. So, I decided today to try that technique with my mother. When she saw me, she winced, her mouth turned down into a snarl and she said, “What do you want?” Luckily, I was sitting opposite her wheelchair in one of those plastic chairs they have. I simply did the things with my hands and ankles, saying, cheerily,  “I wanted to visit you and see how you’re doing?” She raised one of her sparse eyebrows, glaring at me and said, “Go to hell.”

Well, I wasn’t exactly surprised at this response. I mean, I hadn’t been to see her in over three months. But I did feel a little thanks was warranted. I shouldn’t have but I stood up and said, “Show me where hell is and I’ll follow you.” I guess I said this a bit too loud as I was escorted out of there by two orderlies. Well, fuck them and the horse they road in on. To tell the truth, it felt really good to just say what I felt like saying. 

Feb 10,

Dear Diary,

That afternoon after seeing my mother, I stormed over to Starbucks and saw the same barista. I said, “Look, bitch, my name is Penelope. Not Penny. Get my fucking name right! Do I have to spell it for you?” She opened her painted eyes wide and then narrowed them. Walking over to her supervisor, she whispered something, God knows what, but her supervisor asked for my order instead of her. I told her my name was Penelope and I wanted a Cap’n Crunch Frappucino. Without any hesitation, she wrote my name properly and my drink was ready in two minutes. You know what? Maybe my old self wasn’t so bad. I’m getting what I want. No need for GABA.