On Stress – A Review
This last week has been extraordinarily stressful for me. It’s not the prospect to moving to New York or my general concern for my future either, it’s just been a tough week.
In a lot of ways, my life isn’t very steady. I have to work just to get work, and once I find it, it takes a lot of fighting to keep it. Up until recently, I’ve felt like I’ve had to hide a lot of things about myself, but the stress from that compounded with the stress from work and from just trying to be socially active and that was dragging me down so much that I couldn’t keep things in anymore.
All of this has taken a toll on me, and I’ve been struggling to keep up with myself. Getting out of bed is always a chore, but lately even more so. I’ve found that my usual 4-mile run mandates at least two breaks in the middle, despite always being able to finish it in one go. And I’ve just had a lot of trouble writing and speaking coherently.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been like this before, and my usual creature comforts that help me stay grounded aren’t really working. Even right now, typing this, I’m feeling very overwhelmed, but I don’t have anything on my plate today.
This might be why my blogs this week have been more introspective. So, if that’s not your jam, I apologize. But the apology can only go so far, because at the end of the day I’m writing what I need to write and I’m not able to change that.
All of this really put a lot of my life into perspective. Stress management was never something I was extremely good at, but I’d rate my skill as competent. What I generally do is just try to never stress about anything professional. If I do, it’s not that real kind of stress that digs deep, it’s just the surface level stuff.
But, I suppose I have that luxury because all of my jobs have seemed temporary. My freelance career was just to get experience until I could work for a company; my time in the tattoo shop was originally just to cover until I had a replacement, and then when I was asked to stay it was just supposed to be until January 2018; and my college jobs were college jobs.
Most of my stress, I’ll admit it, comes from my social life. But for the most part, I’ve been more assured then ever. I know where I am with almost all of my friends. I think they’re seeing me for me now more than ever, and I’ve recently gotten myself out of a particular sticky situation that was causing some heartache.
So, what’s doing this to me? Honestly, I think it’s because there isn’t a reason to be stressed, I’m stressing that I’m missing something. That there’s some grand conspiracy or minor detail I’m missing that’s going to make my life a living hell. I’m at a point in my life where I have to wait for the calendar to catch up, and I’m having trouble with that.
The one real stress that does exist, I guess, is that I’ve had to work really hard lately on some projects that I’m contractually obligated not to discuss. But the hard work paid off and I got everything done ahead of schedule.
Sure, Monday through Thursday were exhausting from an editing standpoint, but extremely rewarding. And now I don’t have any work for the next week, giving me the opportunity to find more. Which is something I’m used to.
But even thinking about that doesn’t give me any more or less dread. It’s all feels numb or overshadowed by this looming stress hovering just above my head. What does stress feel like? I mean. I know I’m off topic now, but. For me, it’s like this pressure behind my forehead, but I can feel it throughout my entire body. Like I’m on edge. It’s really frustrating, and I feel… touchy? Like I’m about to burst out in a fit of rage or something. I don’t know. I’m just exploring the feeling now. Hoping to take away its grasp on me.
Well. As my friend said last night, the week is over. So, I’m going to try and relax. If that doesn’t help, I’ll start doing hard drugs, and if that doesn’t work, it’s straight to writing angsty poems littered with pointless extended metaphors.
Thanks for reading, just putting these thoughts into words really helped. I hope you have a great weekend, and a stress free life. Hopefully next week, I'll muster up something vaguely funny to post on here.
