Mornings are often hard for me. I used to think I was a morning person. That’s because we had 6 people living in a house with one toilet and I had to be out of the bathroom by 5 am. I suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder. That’s the clinical phrase for Everything Makes Me Nervous, or as my father used to say, “Be afraid.” For the first 70 years of my life I powered through so well people thought I was calm. They were delusional. I was a nervous wreck. When I avoided something scary it appeared as if I was in fact calm, cool and collected. We now know better. Because I had to be out of the bathroom by 5 in the morning, that meant I had to wake up at least by 4, even if I only needed 15 minutes to take care of necessities. Why 4 or earlier? As any generally anxious person can tell you, the worst thing in the world is being late. It’s right up there with death and dismemberment. Fear of being late made me to leave enough time to get lost between the bedroom and the bathroom five times and still get to work by 7. To ease my anxiety, I built a little play shed on the patio, installed a desk and an extension cord, and created a makeshift makeup and hair dressing salon I could stumble into rather than stress over bathroom schedules. Five days a week, I bathed in the middle of night, quietly dressed for work, tip-toed through the house to the back porch, bundled up in a blanket, and sat cross-legged on a secretary’s chair, either attempting to meditate away my jitters, journal about why I should be grateful, or putting on makeup and doing my hair. The results may have been sketchy, but I was doing my best to stay sane and not hurt anyone. After 23 years of this routine, when I was no longer was in charge of the known universe and all in contains; when all other residents left home and I retired from work, I was shocked to discover that I really don’t start functioning until about noon. By 5 pm, life seems worth living again until about 9 when it’s time to get ready for bed. Turns out I’m not a morning person but unfortunately, now late evenings aren’t so hot either. Every morning I write a list of Things To Do. First I take care of the house proudly chores on the list, and then I Go On Errands, which are chores that take place outside the house. This forces me to go talk to people. Yesterday morning was hard. At least 5 planets had gone into retrograde and were sitting on my chest. The world was devoid of joy, yet still I persisted. I had found chores to do that made my day worth living. Someone on FB whom I admire shared a post about a charitable organization in a small town in Gujarat, India that cares for mentally disabled adults. Being the dutiful fan of said FB contact, I drove to my bank to arrange a wire transfer of $50. All went well until I learned that the fee for this transfer would be $50. All parties agreed to separate. I went home, wrote a check, put it in an envelope and drove off to the local post office. The clerk said if the letter was sent express it would only cost me $64. I gaped at him and repeated, “Six Four?” He nodded yes. “How about regular Air Mail?’ He replied, “A dollar fifteen.” “Does this go by slow boat?” No, Air Mail goes by air planes. I was able to give him my envelope and $1.15 in exact change. Contrary to what the clerk said, my envelope is still in transit after 60 days, somewhere between here and Mumbai, but, you know, $1.15. Not quite ready to return home and figure out what next chore would keep me productively occupied until it was time to sit down and start eating my way through the rest of the day, I decided to see what I could find at Jo-Ann’s. I neglected to mention earlier that sewing also helps me get through the day. It gives me closets filled with period costumes to wear in case an event comes up that could use period attire, such as going to see Pride and Prejudice wearing a Jane Austen dress. The weight of five planets on my chest had been lifted just a tad by my attempts to send money to Mumbai. I walked into Jo-Ann’s with a bi-polar attitude of hopefulness and negativity. I’d been on a strict diet of no shopping for months and my efforts had paid off with a little spending money. I left Jo-Ann’s with a bag of fabric out of which I may sew one item of everyday wear and three items of make believe clothing. Adding spools of thread and a zipper, the total came to twice what I would spend at Kohl’s for an entire wardrobe. In this instance, money is not the issue. It’s the notion of creativity, the hope that the fabric will turn out the way I see it in my head which, to be perfectly honest, is on the body of a svelte 20-year old who does not have a rounded back. In short, it gives me the joy of having something to look forward to tomorrow, when I wake up feeling depressed about my life. For $181.62, I bought myself true belief in the possibility of ecstatic success. That’s what I call a real bargain.