Monday, March 15, 2010

Stress

My last two posts are really about stress, what it's done to me physically, how I tried to respond the other day by stepping back, but I am not doing such a good job of it. I can't seem to find balance between having focused time with Kathleen and getting my work done and getting some semblance of almost enough sleep. I'm trying to run and walk and meditate and breathe. I said to my sister tonight that it bothered me, that after all I've been through, that I am this stressed about the day to day, about making dinner with Kathleen screaming at my feet, about trying to find enough hours in the day to get my work done. None of it is life or death. I should be able to handle it.

"You know this isn't separate from the last couple of years," she said.

And she's right. It's just not as obvious now that I'm more than two years out. It's not as obvious as I feel more and more distance and as I do this dance of holding tight and letting go. It's not as obvious as home is very present and the CICU fades slowly into memory. It's not as obvious as I focus on a healthy living child, but it's all still there. And December, and it's aftermath in January, showed me that I'm not as far removed from grief or safe from its clutches as I'd like to think I am.

In the earliest days of my grief I wanted a fast-forward button to get myself to a point where things were, what better? bearable? liveable? But now, I want a pause button. I want to stop the world that spins around me so I can put aside the work projects for a day or a week or a month. I want the bills to stop pouring in so I can take a nap. I want to wake up in the morning and be able to focus on my family and maybe take a little time for me.

But there's no pause button, so I keep trudging along, sneaking time with my girl, doing my best to piece in the work that needs to be done, and trying to breathe

5 comments:

  1. Yes. Yes. This is how I am feeling. It's not obviously the problem and yet it is. I hate living like this.

    xx

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  2. I hear you (and Soph). Yes. Just yes.

    xo

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  3. I find myself frustrated at the same thing. Right after Liam, I would not stress about daily problems because they were not life/ death. It did not matter. Who cares. But now, as time as passed, I do find myself stressing about smaller things, and I stress easier. But, I think it is all tied together. Our grief, that huge weight that we carry every day, effects how we can handle nearly everything.

    Finding balance is a challenge.

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  4. "the dance of holding tight and letting go" - I love the way you put this.

    I'd like a pause button, too. If I find one, I'll share it.

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  5. Trudging alongside you.

    I seem to go back and forth between thinking that all those daily problems can't bother me and finding them absolutely overwhelming. x

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