close

Blanketed by anxiety

4 min read

Notice: Undefined variable: article_ad_placement3 in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/single.php on line 128

Are you anxious? I know I am.

The Census Bureau asks questions like that, and the answer is: this pandemic and the political climate are giving as many as a third of us anxiety. My own anxiety has morphed over the past year, going from the early COVID months when I had the TV remote in one hand and the thermometer in the other, to this jittery week of the new year, when I’m aware that National Guard troops are sleeping on the Capitol floor.

I’ve tried all the usual remedies: deep breathing? It helps a little. CBD gummies? Tasty ciphers. A yoga class in a hot, dark studio has always helped with my general baseline of jumpiness, but you know, COVID.

My quest for answers led me in a different direction. I typed “anxiety blanket” into a search engine and found my relief. For a lot less than 50 bucks, I would sleep under a reassuring stretch of fabric that would envelop me like a warm fog.

Three days later the box arrived at the door. It was the size of an eight-pack of toilet paper and the weight of a compact car. When I finally hauled it into the house, I opened it to find a gray, quilted blanket folded into a thick square. It would take the strength of both arms and a stable, wide-leg stance to unfurl it onto the bed. I thought I felt my anxiety relaxing a bit as I smoothed the fabric with my hands.

A champion napper all my life, the uncertainties of the past 10 months have made me more alert in the afternoons, and unable or disinclined to get some shuteye. But my blanket beckoned.

There are all sorts of weighted blankets, including expensive ones that are knit from thick yarns that must be reinforced with the same materials they put in radial tires. I chose the less expensive version, a blanket of baffled cotton sateen fabric stuffed with glass beads. What baffles me is why I can’t feel those beads, even when I poke around for them.

OK, so now it was time to climb aboard. Or under. Because a big bag of glass beads is not the sort of thing you would put into the washer, I put the blanket atop the regular quilt to keep it clean. It took some finagling to get myself fully under the blankets; if you’ve ever found yourself at the bottom of a mosh pit, or had a house land on you a la the Wicked Witch, you’re on the right track.

Actually, I decided the anxiety blanket feels precisely like the lead apron they put on you when you’re having X-rays at the dentist. The thought of that made me a little anxious. Maybe if I turned onto my side I’d feel better. I rolled and, as everyone does, grabbed the blanket to pull it up around my head.

But I was not grabbing at a puff of feathers; I was grabbing at 16 square yards of heavy chainmail. Pop! went my shoulder joint. Also, I think I re-injured the finger I sprained in October. The blanket wouldn’t budge, and so I skooched myself under it, digging my heels into the mattress to get traction as I burrowed toward the foot of the bed.

And there I lay under the heaviness, uneasy thoughts swirling in my head as I waited for sleep to come get me. When it finally came, I dreamed the usual, universal dream that my teeth were falling out. Talk about anxious.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today