KEEP CALM AND GO STRAIGHT TO THE LIBRARY

MODELS: UNCREDITED, COSMOPOLITAN, 1982. BACKGROUND: COPENHAGEN LIBRARY, DENMARK. TEXT: HALL & OATES, “DO WHAT YOU WANT, BE WHAT YOU ARE”

So I had an experience this morning that I’m trying to pitch to myself as humbling, rather than humiliating.

I had a panic attack.

Yes, a real, live panic attack. One that made me freeze like a deer in headlights, and go left instead of right.

It’s not that I’m any kind of stranger to anxiety. But I’ve gotten very good, in day-to-day life, at swallowing my anxiety in the moment, and getting on with the business of life.

The difference with today’s panic attack was that instead of swallowing that fear and going on with my usual routine, I told myself I can’t. And I gave into my panic, even though rationally I knew I should take some deep, slow breaths and just keep going.

I mean… you might think it’s strange for a therapist to say this, but I believe that humans have the capacity to make choices — even in the midst of emotional chaos. And in this case, I chose to stay in my panic.

So I did the unthinkable, for a high-functioning Type A personality: I called off the first two hours of my work day.

Okay, fair enough, you might say. But after the panic faded ten minutes later into a moderate feeling of dread, I didn’t know quite what to do with myself. I knew if I stayed at home, I would feel useless and uptight about not being at work.

So the point of this story is… I went to the library.

I mean, I wasn’t even planning to stay there. I just had two long-overdue books to return that I didn’t want to pay the library back for.

But once I pulled up, she beckoned to me. Come on in, my friendly little library seemed to be saying. Rest your weary head a while in my quiet nooks.

The first thing I’ll say is that the library has an incredible, blood pressure-lowering effect on human beings, which I felt the instant I stepped inside its heavy doors. Those doors must have some sort of sonic superseal when they shut, because what hit me next was an atmosphere of pure, intense quiet.

I became so relaxed, so quickly, that I forgot every bit of my shame about returning my library books more than a month late. Or, y’know, about having a panic attack that had rendered me useless.

Excuse me, I said with uncharacteristic pleasantness, sidling up to the male librarian. I’m terribly sorry, but I just returned two ridiculously overdue books. What happens now?

To my great surprise, the librarian assured me that the $31.50 bill I had received to cover the cost of the lost/stolen books would be “instantly wiped out” the moment the computer registered the returns.

Beautiful! I felt like shouting out to the library patrons scattered soundlessly around the first floor periodicals. Instantly wiped out, did you hear that, people? How often in life do you get a chance to have your mistakes ‘instantly wiped out’?

I hope to God I don’t have another panic attack that’s going to raise red flags at work. But if today was instructive, I’m very glad to know that the library is where I can go to reset my (nervous) nervous system into whole new realm of existence.

It’s a peaceful Universe, the library is. Calm. Quiet. Relaxed. And mercifully, endlessly forgiving!

As I’m writing this, it’s making more and more sense why the atmosphere of the library resonates so deeply with me. I mean, you may beg to differ, but I think we’re like two peas in a pod.❤️‍🔥—Y.B.D.