I have been under a lot of stress for a good while now. Sometimes I can envision myself as a rubber band, everything pulling me and pulling me until I reach the breaking point and then…SNAP! Other times I think of myself as a balloon that gets filled with stress instead of air…we all know what happens to overfilled balloons. Eventually, they pop. I can honestly say that there have been times lately that I have been ready to pop.
Each time I would solve an issue, plug a hole in the boat, each time I could begin to think about using my hands to take care of something other than an extreme emergency, each time…something else. It got to the point that when people would stick their head into my office my first response isn’t “hey, what’s up”. It got to the point where the first response was “(sigh) what now??”
The only things I could think about were the fifty overdue things I needed to be doing and the fifty other “urgently needed” things that people walked by and dropped in my lap at the last-minute. Or after the last-minute. To say that I have been wound a bit tightly would be saying it very nicely.
Although some of the stress is just my job, there have been other stressors as well, some of them I write about here, like the pregnant teenager, who has about five weeks, give or take before going into labor. Things like the F4 tornado that devastated a good part of our town, of which FEMA plans to help us not one bit. (!) Then there are the things that I don’t write about so much, like the employee that I lost this week because of a medical issue. I will miss that one dearly as he was one of the very small handful I could always count on to do the best he could (waves at you) He was also pretty much the only person I worked with that is a regular reader here. I don’t talk about the other employee who is starting her third (count ‘em) round of chemo for breast cancer. I don’t talk about the major falling out I had with a person that I considered a friend or the abuse of a trust involved there. (in a way that falling out had a lot to do with this blog posting)
It is like I will be a stress magnet. When there is an emergency that lasts for a while…like the tornado…where I work, we are non-profit and we are a big part of the recovery effort. I deal in logistics, moving people and supplies. It sounds very easy but let me assure you that it gets crazy and it doesn’t take long to get crazy. I worked a couple of very long weeks, wondering if it would EVER slow down, it felt like I was living at work. It felt like I was a walking zombie.
Once the recovery effort did not need us as much, I discovered that I had a pile on my desk of things that hadn’t been done because I was doing other things. There were literally not enough hours in the day to get everything caught up and still take care of me and family. Incredibly little time to keep up with friends, although I did try to at least yell to someone every now and again so that everyone knew I was still alive.
In the last week, I have almost managed to sort through the stuff that had to wait until there was time. I am still very overwhelmed, but it is a different overwhelmed than before. I don’t know if it has to do with there being less in the stack or if it is more a case of me getting used to seeing it there. 
In either case, I found myself zoning out a little more often, and getting many headaches. I figured out that the headaches were from forgetting to take medications (which I am forever struggling with…) so we are working on that.
Yesterday a strange feeling came over me, but it isn’t a feeling that I haven’t had before. I had the urge to find the biggest guy in the room and just walk up and punch him square in the jaw! (not an actual person…metaphor)
The feeling is always the same. I just itch for a fight. I was telling a friend that I thought I needed a full size punching bag. That way I could just whale into it and not get my ass kicked. Although I am sure it would help burn off some energy, I don’t think that would fix the problem. My (smaller than me) friend said “you can hit me! I am wee but I will get right back up again!” which I found immensely funny. It also made me think about this feeling more than I ever have before. I wrote back that it wasn’t that I was angry about anything. I just wanted a fight. I suggested that perhaps I needed to get Her to wrestle with me.
She and I will wrestle from time to time. It helps when I get like this. It is one of the few things that really helps when I get like this. Until yesterday I never really understood why, but I think I get part of it now. I told my friend that “When I get like this, it has to be somebody bigger and tougher than me. I don’t want to win, I want to lose because it isn’t the victory I crave, it is the fight.”
Whoa there, partner! Did I just say that? I sure as hell did.
Well that got my attention. It happens to be contrary to my very nature. Lunargirl wants to win at everything! What is this nonsense about wanting to lose? Honestly, that is exactly it, though. I want to pick a fight that I know I won’t win, just so that I don’t win.
That reminded me of a song that I love dearly, I have loved it my whole life long. Mom used to listen to it, and I will bet that many of you have too. I love the music of the song, the harmony, chord progression…it is soothing. I also happen to adore the lyrics and always have. The lyric that really speaks to my situation:
In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade
and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame:
I am leaving, I am leaving!
But the fighter still remains
I see in myself a bit of the boxer.
When I get stressed, I am constantly fighting to keep control of emotion and not lose my mind and fall apart.
When the stress becomes too much, when I get really and truly overwhelmed, when I fall to my knees and swear that I just can’t do this anymore, I know deep down that I am going to manage to get right back up and keep right on doing what needs to be done–what must be done–because that is what the fighter does.
The fighter remains.
Lunargirl
