keeping your cool

erk recently made a promise that he was done "losing his cool"
life is too short, and most of the things we get worked up about aren't worth getting worked up about...

and while i am confident that he will be unable to "keep his cool" indefinitely, i know that he is better at it than i am.

not only am i emotional,
but i'm also really, really, really, emotional.

driving is one of the things that scares me most in reagrds to my emotions,
because i can get soooo frustrated by other people,
or with myself
or with the world
specifically while driving.
and sometimes i feel like driving the car, at full speed, into a wall.

for years my anxiety dreams were about cars.
having the doors blow off as i was driving
the brakes crapping out
or some other factor leaving me with little or no control of the vehicle that i was operating

and before the car dreams it was dreams about my jaw
that my jaw was clenched shut
and i couldn't speak
and usually i could feel the tightening coming on and the anxiety of it's arrival was almost worse than my jaw finally being completely locked.
the worst was how very very real those dreams felt

but whether in the conscious, or subconscious world, i need to learn how to keep my cool;
which is harder than it sounds for some of us.
because it means "un"-learning many other things.