Maybe a little journaling will help me sort out my clogged brain...
I had a bit of a stressful day yesterday. I was just trying to return the borrowed lawn mower on the quiet back roads with the borrowed unregistered trailer when a bored sheriff and his buddy the state trooper happened to pull up behind me. Okay, I'll get a fine. Oh, apparently the last registration sticker had been altered with a Sharpie. (In case you're wondering, these guys really get bent out of shape about that sort of thing.) Complications ensued. I started out remarkably zen about it all, but the complications took a toll.
I'd also been stressing out about trying to coordinate with P about our joint application for a winter gig. The sticking point was that I was supposed to update my resume and I only had limited time available (something that I find stressful and time consuming under the best of circumstances), while P was trying to get things turned in ASAP. I felt like I didn't have a clear enough picture of the whole application she was putting together, so I didn't have enough information to do my piece properly.
I struggled for a while and finally sent P an email saying that I was sorry that I hadn't figured it out and been clearer sooner, but I didn't have enough info to put anything together quickly and she should just do whatever was necessary to satisfy her time frame.
Then I sat back and sobbed at the release of that stress. I realized that I'd just spent a couple days back in that impossible place where I'm trying so hard to please P (and not get dumped). We're all trying so hard to be the perfect partner and even when they don't seem to be looking our every move is being judged. (I was reading Cadet's earliest thread and he ever so calmly kept mentioning the stress of the situation.) So I was sitting there, feeling my feelings, remembering the pain of all the other impossible choices between conflicting expectations, especially during the last year.
And the phone rang. P got the email and immediately called. "You sound stressed. We shouldn't stress about this. How do you want to do it?" So we strategized for a while then caught up a bit. Then she mentioned that she'd made a doctor's appointment and is planning on coming back on Thursday and staying about ten days to tie up some loose ends and maybe she can help out with some house projects. If that's okay with me.
Yeah, it's okay with me. And it just happens to mean that she'll be here for my birthday next week. So now I'm all weepy with gratitude.
I know it's important to feel our feelings, but it's also exhausting right about now. I'll be working on getting them calmed down well before Thursday.
