He was a tall man of Italian descent with a razor sharp mind, a gentle sense of humor, and a combination of black curls and brilliant blue eyes – always twinkling, I might add. It was one of his favorite words – agita.
We were an item many moons ago, and I still remember the way he would relate his workday and finish, grinning, informing me if any specific challenges were giving him agita.
Me? Last night? This morning? Today?
Agita – and without a grin or a twinkle in my eye. Agita that may continue for days.
I wonder if you’re feeling it, too.
Agita is defined as a feeling of uneasiness, anxiousness, or anxiety. It’s an unsettled feeling that for me has always possessed a physical component in the pit of my stomach – an element of dread, an unyielding sensation of disquiet and agitation. Personally, I feel it when too much of my own fate is out of my hands.
Oh, I’ve experienced it before of course, and in a full range of intensities. There’s worry over a child, the sort of worry that gnaws at you because you’ve done everything you can, and the rest is up to him or her – and waiting for the agita to subside.
If it’s worry over work – the boss with daggers in his eyes, the assignments that cannot possibly be accomplished in the time frame, the pending pink slip you envision each morning as you wake job-scared – you wonder if the best solution is to take back control and simply search for something else. You can begin that search. You can also seek alternatives and options where you are. Action defies powerlessness and relieves agita.
Agita may rear its head when the world itself barrels beyond our comprehension. Agita may border on the worst kind of bloodless fear. In the weeks following 9/11 – how many of us lived in a state of physical disorientation? In this time of post-hurricane devastation, how many of us are worried sick over friends, relatives, or perhaps ourselves?
I have felt this agita growing for months.
For my country. For my community. For women. For the future of my children. For the future of all our children, and the long-term view we must adopt in their best interest as well as our own.
I’ll be heading out to vote later today. I don’t reside in a “battleground state,” but that’s irrelevant. It’s pouring rain outside and that’s irrelevant, too. I cannot imagine not exercising my right to vote.
I tell myself again: Action quiets agita.
Awhile back, I wrote something about dogged determination, creative problem-solving, conflict resolution. I’m working to remind myself of these words:
… we need to be invested in the solution – and not the struggle…
… empathy – that ability to recognize another person’s goals, constraints, and feelings – does not mean you accord their experience more value than your own. But it may assist in taking the sting out of an outcome that is less than what you wanted, and it leads to forging understanding that may bring us closer to our goals – and while we’re at it, to each other.
How long will I be standing in line to vote?
No clue.
How long before we know who the next president is?
Again, no clue.
I find it difficult to imagine there won’t be disputes before the election is settled. That, I know, is part of the agita.
I hope I’m wrong. I want to be wrong.
I can’t help but think of that very dear, very special man who first taught me the word. He passed away a few years back, but he still visits me from time to time in dreams. His presence – despite his fondness for the term agita – is always a source of calm. He was in fact a respected leader in the company he ran, a believer in working toward consensus, but willing and able to make the tough call.
He was about respect and cooperation. He did not dwell in the struggle. He was focused on achieving solutions.
Perhaps today as I stand in line with my own hopefulness intact – however long, however wet the wait may be – I’ll have a sense of this dear friend nearby, and the positivism he epitomized not as ideology, but a way of life. He was a man who reasoned carefully, listened to knowledgeable sources, fought his battles with ferocity and integrity, and then took action.
Yes, with that twinkle in his eye.
If I can channel him, perhaps my agita will begin to ease. If we could all channel a comparable spirit, our national agita would release its grip and we would work together toward solutions.
Sounds like a wonderful human being, that man. One who could lead, accomplish, command respect, reason, listen, fight, keep integrity – but with a twinkle in his eye. A twinkle that was so present it’s a characteristic you still recall. That’s the secret. There’s the rub. Remain happy and keep it in perspective. Focus. On solutions while in the midst of the struggle(s).
Hope your line to vote is not too long.
He was indeed a remarkable man.
The lines were very manageable – and the entire process, well organized and well staffed.
Agita is a much shorter than the term I use for the same feeling “Impending sense of doom”. Sometimes I know why I am feeling it (like with you -and me- and this election), and then there are the other times when it hits and I can’t figure out why.
I hope the mere knowing of the election results will help ease the agita, and that it won’t actually make it worse.
I know agita all right. I, too, feel it when too much of my own fate is out of my hands. The last week has been a doozy on that front and all I can do is make contingency plans that don’t feel nearly good enough to replace what’s been stripped away.
Crossing my fingers that at least for today’s election, we’ll come through it with fewer delays in the results than predictions have offered. I suppose living on the West Coast gives me a little less time to wait! I think in the last election, they called it before dinnertime here. But when I was on the East Coast for the ’04 election … well, I nodded off in a beanbag chair in front of the TV and woke up in the wee hours with sore muscles and still no president.
And I’ve just realized it was the 2000 election, not 2004, that was the night of the beanbag. Yikes, it’s all becoming a blur!
“I feel it when too much of my own fate is out of my hands.”
I did just what I laid out to do in my comment on your Nov 4th post. Today I did a write-in for the Presidential election and held my explanatory sign outside the polls. Good discussion and exchange of ideas. SO… I feel that I took fate into my own hands and did what I could. I can never be sure of the outcome, but that is not the point if you feel that you are living your own life as best you can under the circumstances and are independent (my pack-on-the-back model, if ever necessary). I feel good.
I still have some agita about loss that is inevitable with aging. Resignation is just not my thing.
“Action quiets agita.” Yes, and thank you for adding to my vocabulary. I started feeling agita a couple of months ago so I got busy with things I could do, or at least be informed by, if action wasn’t an option. I sent in my absentee ballot the day I received it — that helped some.
I am usually door-knocking in another state on election day in a presidential election year, but I’m staying home this time. I want to be with my family in case my fears come true. But I’m feeling good today after many, many hours of volunteer phonebanking. (I’m still at it!) The good voters of NV, FL, WI, OH with whom I’ve chatted have given me the reassurance that we are headed in the right direction. Fingers and toes crossed.
My Agita began exactly 12 years ago, ran at max intensity for 8 years, has declined for most of the last four, re-emerged the last few months, and started a precipitous decline these last few minutes.
Robert, I think you say it beautifully. A deep breath. And then, I hope, we dig in to do the work needed. All of us. There’s a great deal of healing to be addressed.
Well I looked up the election results this morning and was vastly relieved. Perhaps some of your agita may have subsided as well? I liked what you said about action quieting agita. It doesn’t always for me, but if I know I’ve done all I can it helps me put aside the worry and get on with other things.
Feel that breeze across the continent? That is the World breathing a HUGE sigh of relief. 🙂
Oh, La Bergère – so glad you stopped by. Thank you for this… I can only imagine…
It’s the new normal.