I have been struggling. (as mostly evidenced by the fact that I haven’t been writing). And I realized there are all these things that I am always trying to balance and most often my eating habits fall under these other priorities. Plus, I stress eat. And lately I’ve been feeling VERY STRESSED.
We put an offer on a new home. IF anything happens on that front, I’ll let you know. So far…. waiting… I am a very goal oriented person. I feel like I’m stagnant not knowing where I am going to be in the next few months and that is stressing me out. Plus, if we get an answer then everything will happen VERY FAST and I have to be prepared. What exactly I will be prepared for; I’m not sure. How exactly I will be prepared; I don’t know. But I am making lots and lots of lists…
Money always stresses me out. Lack of it, worry about future lack of it… I stress. Then I eat. Usually the whole pizza. Lately, less pizza (yay very small victories) but still, I eat.
Aside from life’s economics and pending moves; I stress about:
- How many hours of sleep am I getting? Seriously, trying to fall asleep stresses me out when I can’t seem to shut my brain off. Then I tell myself: “if you don’t fall asleep, I’m getting up and making you work on the to do list.” Then while I am up and productive, I stress about not getting enough sleep and that tomorrow I will feel tired and not get enough done. Cycles aren’t just for the Tour De France.
- What am I eating and how? I eat a lot of my food while chasing/ feeding/ cleaning a toddler. I almost never get to sit down for more than a few minutes. If I do take the time to make a meal I then don’t have the time to sit and enjoy it.
- I never get to exercise. There’s always something that needs to be done and I justify it 1. because I frackin’ hate the gym and anything that resembles exercise but 2. that yard work or laundry or dishes or cleaning the house is practically exercise anyway right? No. Then I guilt stress about not being physically active and what that is probably doing to my arteries.
- I require order in my home. This means I spend half (well it seems like half, I’ve never actually timed it) my day making sure that my life, my family, my home runs and functions in an orderly way. It’s psychotic. No one needs to clean and sweep and mop (I never dust so that means I’m not a complete neurotic right?) every week. I feel like I literally can’t do anything else until the chaos created by a toddler and extended family (I have a no shoe rule but I also have tween and teen nephews and I’d rather sweep again than smell their hormone charged feet…) I stress about not having everything in it’s place and about spending too much of my time thinking about how to put everything in a better place. No joke. I re-arranged my kitchen this week. Obviously, I can’t move the cupboards, but the island, the stove… the configuration of my kitchen changed in one morning. Because now it flows better than the last configuration I changed it to six months ago to get a better flow than the one before that…. these little victories make me feel less stressed but I’m not sure they actually DO anything.
- There is no real structure in my life from the day to day. Because I’m a stay at home mom, I get to set any schedule I want, and so, I do what needs doing and move on to the next thing. But the lack of structure seems disorganized and I stress that it’s not structured enough for my little boy.
- Do I do enough artistic work to nourish myself? The short answer is no. (one of the reason’s we are looking to move) but the longer answer is that I do lots of little things every day to fulfill the artistic void left in my life from leaving the big city where opportunities overflowed. None of them feel like enough or are completely fulfilling but I am making do. Of course, I bet that when we get back in a major metropolitan area and I can spend all my evenings at a theatre being part of a group of talented people creating something I am immensely proud of, I will no doubt stress about how much time I am not spending with my little boy and my husband and whether or not they are really doing okay without me….
- I do absolutely nothing to nourish my soul. I rarely even take the time to notice the sunset. I’m pretty sure these things: money, sleep, eating, exercise, order in the home, schedule, art, and soul satisfaction are what a life is made up of. Mine seems to be built on stress to create more stress. Of course, I tell myself that once we know if we are moving, then all of this will magically disappear! And now I’m stressing that I am so neurotic that years of therapy are never going to get to the root of it while costing my zillions of dollars… “STRESS!!!!!”
