See No Evil

So today I had an eye-opening experience...and almost burned my eye. One of my weaknesses is not being able to process or perform without caffeine, weakness/addiction, whatever. My other weakness is genetic - I have bad vision, think Coke bottle glasses, bad. These two weaknesses together.... no bueno
I have this intense eye regiment, I use a product that has a high-concentration solvent and breaks down the excess protein that my crazy eyes seem to over produce. This high-concentrated solvent has to be diluted a process that takes six hours to be effective. So you cannot put this solution right into your eye. Now, this morning I wake up and stumble to put on my contacts (my daily answer to this genetic weakness) and notice it's a little dry. So in my pre-coffee haze, I pour this high-concentrated solution onto my lens. Imagine hot sauce being poured into your eye, now multiply by 10, then add a couple minutes since contacts that are in distress stick to your eye, so my heinous situation turned into a full episode of screaming and praying that I don't go blind...at 6:30 this morning. After flushing my eye out, I reason, it's fine...wear my glasses today and I'll be fine...Until I called my eye doctor, whose receptionist tells me "OMG, you should come in like now." Of course I freak out, cry hysterically in the bathroom at work and stumble to the eye doctor.
At the end of this my eye doctor said I was fine, but I should wear my glasses for a week...Sweet. So why the dramatic post you ask? I've been on an upswing of positive energy (knock on wood) and someone recently said to me "you've been having all this good luck, just wait there's always the other shoe that's going to fall twice as hard..." After thinking, sweet Optimistic Olivia, I became really nervous and rationalized any small issue as "the other shoe." And then after this eye thing, I thought maybe almost blinding myself is the other shoe (!!!) - and then I thought "self, why is everything in life a compromise of good and evil?" It's a little disturbing that my first thought after the pain subsided was "phew, almost blindness is my ticket away from the bad shoe." So in my anxiety I spent most of this evening researching where this token phrase came from to put my mind at ease and so I thought I'd share my findings:

"A man comes in late at night to a lodging house. He sits on his bed, drags one shoe off and drops it on the floor. Guiltily remembering everyone around him trying to sleep, he takes the other one off much more carefully and quietly puts in on the floor. He then finishes undressing and gets into bed. Just as he is drifting off to sleep, a shout comes from the man in the room below: “Well, drop the other one then! I can’t sleep, waiting for you to drop the other shoe!" (World Wide Words)

So, there you go. A token phrase coined by someone probably as nervous as me, thinking, worrying and waiting for that other dang shoe.

The New York Shoe Box

Also known as an apartment in Manhattan. I guess everyone would live here if it was affordable, since smelly subways and crazies walking next to you is appealing. I mean really and the real estate agents have to make a small fortune off of their so called "no fee" apartments. Some of the apartments I've seen are atrocious, but can you imagine - having two days to move and you start to convince yourself that you can share a bathroom in the hallway with two neighbors in a six floor walk up (yes those places exist and are on the market). Seriously, the rat infested apartments should be discounted since more than one thing is living there at a time -- what you think is a studio is really a three bedroom convert.
If you can't tell I'm having a moment - and I have a blog, why not merge the two :)
Welcome home:

And then there was the other shoe ...

I've confessed my secrets about being a nervous nellie and someone who is perpetually nervous or anxious. I even subtly mentioned about the checklist I run through when I leave my house or work every day. Keys? Check. Wallet? Check. Sanity ... eh? While, these nuances might be unique to double d, I've discovered a trend that many my age + can relate to...the idea of 'waiting on the other shoe to drop'.
Growing up has made me realize several things (too many to count) but most certainly I've come to the conclusion that in this transition period the elder call "the twenties" you live each moment as your last or in some situations become too scared to move because you are waiting for the other shoe. So many things about getting older is a perpetual waiting game, "will I get the job", "will I find my perfect apartment", "will I fall in love"? The essence of this waiting game is knowing there is something on the other side, and for you crazy dramatics it probably isn't half bad, but the point is when do you realize the shoe has fallen.
Not that I realize a shoe of mine has fallen, but I have come to find out that waiting is no way to live and we all do it. Trust me, I'm not going to end this post with "what's meant to be will be" because I hate that saying or "everything happens for a reason" -- someone come up with a better answer please. It's almost like, the shoe that drops is the one you were looking for anyway so you might as well put it on and keep on walking.
When you're older you have a better sense of being and the other shoe isn't about to drop. In fact the shoe has probably fallen, you've lost it, gave up, and found another pair of shoes that weren't suspended in mid-air.
But, I'm not at that age yet and I won't tell you my anxiety is any less realizing that this mentality will only last me another 7 years (or so). All I know is right now, I'm OK with not knowing and just living. I have two shoes on and if another one falls out the sky, I'm going to look around to see who it belongs to.