Repeat After Me: Every Thing is Going be Alright

October is over and I spent the weekend recuperating from being over scheduled all month and from having my emotions shot around like a steel ball inside a muddy pinball machine while we try to elect our next president. I reached my breaking point on Saturday and I ended up taking a rare, three hour nap in the middle of the day and I spent the rest of the weekend alternating between taking the Hallmark Movie Channel anecdote of all-Christmas-all-day-long and reading a book about an autistic savant who, when the world gets too much for him to handle he hides, covers his ears and repeats numbers in his head. The movies and reading didn’t help. I think I need to go to the humane society and pet some puppies.

Not surprisingly I suppose, is the fact that a new week has started and I’m still in a funk and with that comes the woo-is-me need for a good widow’s weep. I feel tears behind my eyes every time I think of a future. I feel tears behind my eyes every time a song on the radio reminds me of the past. And I feel tears behind my eyes just because if I do cry there's no one to wipe the tears away with soft words or to kick my butt with a reality check that I've been through far worse and survived to thrive afterward. So I keep telling myself, “This too shall pass.” Ya, I know, I’m a drama queen inside my head. 

But it won’t pass quickly because I’m still over scheduled this week with something going on every day although some of it will be fun. For example, I’ll be going on a cityscapes tour and lunch at a cider house pub with twenty-five others from the senior hall and the next day I’ll be meeting a woman for lunch that I met through The Gathering, a group for people looking for friends. She lives a bit north of town so we’ll be having lunch at a half way point, in my husband’s hometown. This will be our second outing and I’m crossing my fingers that we will continue to click. In the mundane column of activities already checked off the list this week are: Levi needed transportation to and from the Foo-Foo Doggie Beauty Parlor, I got my pneumonia booster shot, ghosts and goblins came begging for candy (Halloween is not my favorite holiday), and I had to pick up the house ahead of my appointment to get my house cleaned. If you have a cleaning service you’ll know what I mean; you don’t leave your valuables and dirty Kleenex laying around. Ditto on the clean clothes still hanging around in the laundry room.

Like the autistic savant boy in the book I’m reading, we all have our ways of coping when the world around us seems to be spinning out of control. I sleep. Then I write, hoping solutions to issues and stresses rolling around inside my head will reveal themselves in my stream of consciousness. With problems like tech issues with my Fitbit syncs quitting as did the On-Demand function on my bedroom TV---they all get put on the back burner until I have the time and patience it takes to call Tech Hell to straighten them out. In other words I prioritize and if I had ice cream in the house eating it would be at the top of the list.

On cdc.gov they have tips for coping with stress and number one on the list is to “eat healthy, well-balanced meals.” When I couldn’t find ice cream in the freezer, I scored a T-bone steak instead. Not exactly healthy but I balanced it with broccoli and called it close enough. Number two on the list is to “exercise on a regular basis.” Oh, please! I’ve been working on that one my entire life and I’m not there yet. Recently I did add 140 steps---done in a figure eight around my three stall garage---every time I let Levi out the back door. No kidding, that adds nearly 1,000 steps to my day. The third thing on the coping-with-stress list is to get enough sleep. Well, duh, when I find myself napping in the middle of the day I think, “Damn, the devil’s darkness got me again.” It’s how I know when I’ve reached my limit; it’s my version of putting my hands over my ears and counting numbers in my head.

Other tips listed at cdc.gov were: Give yourself a break and the article actually said, “Take a break from listening to news stories” (give me another week and I’ll do just that); talk to someone, share your problems (I don’t talk, I write); avoid drugs and alcohol (thankfully ice cream isn’t classified as a drug); and recognize when you need help from a professional. Who needs a professional when you’re part of a blog community that can join in singing a few lines from Bob Marley’s Three little Birds: “Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing is gonna be alright.” And if that doesn’t help turn down my stress level there’s always the humane society. ©

Three Little Birds