No, the mess is not of the tangible kind. It's an abstract mess. It is mess of the mind.
Everything feels wrong today. Everything feels scary. Everything feels like it's tenuous and on edge. I'm worried about everything, even things I wasn't worried about yesterday. Every fibre of my being is buzzing with stress and my head feels as muddled as a milkshake. And I know the feeling well, because I've lived with it forever.
It's a bout of anxiety.
So familiar am I with anxiety that I've written my next book about it. Ironically, though, I've been doing well since I finished writing, and was worried (yes, 'worried') that I wouldn't be sufficiently in touch with my anxiety to talk about it in a couple of months during interviews.
Well, I guess it turns out I was wrong.
It's come back, with a vengeance, just when things are going really well. I have a new column. I'm going to London next week. My kids are healthy and happy. We have potloads of money (okay, so teaspoons, but things will pick up).
And yet I'm running around in circles, my mind is spinning on it's axis, I'm cleaning cupboards when I'm supposed to be working, and eating chocolate when I'm supposed to be sleeping, and thinking up worst case scenarios with every breath.
It will pass, I know. Maybe by the time you read this, the anxiety will have eased. And maybe by the time I really do have to publicise my book, I won't remember this feeling.
But for now, anyway, that's the one thing I'm not going to worry about.
