It is currently 4:48 in the morning. On typical days, I would still be sleeping peacefully in my queen sized bed with a cooling mattress topper and the sound of the trickling rain outside. Unfortunately, today is not a typical day. Today is one of those days that I woke up with a million thoughts running through my head, strong anxiety, and with an the desire to do nothing but lay in bed all day and do nothing productive to my life.

Most days, I can function like the normal adult woman. I can go to work, I can carry out conversations with other adults, I can clean, I can go to the gym, I can run errands and play with my puppy.

Today is not most days.

Today, chocolate milk and a good TV show will be the only things I think I can functionally do. At some point, I will need to function enough to get an oil change in our truck, but today, my anxiety is bigger than my rationale. I know what I need to do, but my conscious thoughts are too much to handle in the midst of doing my every day tasks. Today, I can only focus on one physically exhausting mental thought at a time.

It's amazing what chocolate milk and your favorite things can do. It takes you back to a time when life was a peaceful luxury full of play and enthusiasm. It takes you back to Sunday morning cartoons and playing with friends until sunset. I takes you back to some sort of freedom that your adult life has taken away from you. I encourage you to have a chocolate milk day.

Final thoughts:

I would NEVER choose anxiety. If it were up to me, I would turn the switch off and let it get dusty. I didn't choose anxiety. I didn't choose to wake up at 4 in the morning with scrambled thoughts and tears. I didn't choose the aching chest pain or the running thoughts. Please, never say that anxiety or depression are a choice because they are not. Instead, lend a listening ear, a glass of chocolate milk, and a good book.