Essay 100: Stress kills

Today is 02/10/2018 and I predict that stress will kill me one day.
The worst kind of death possible. A terrible agony that will have started long before my final breath.

I’ll be 42 in a month and I have been stressed ever since I can remember. There is a photo of me as a 3-month-old baby and I am beaming in that photo. I wasn’t stressed then.
What happened to that baby? Where is that shining spirit? The soul who believed it was going to be a great ride. I can see all the hope and joy in her eyes, the eagerness to start on the journey. Now I’m worn down. The baby grew up and the joy and hope got beaten out of it.

On the outside, everything is good in my life. Better than good. It’s great!
I have a loving husband, a healthy daughter, good neighbors and great friends. I live in a nice house by the beach; there’s money in the bank account and spare time to go to yoga and write. So what the hell is the matter with me?

I’m tired.
Deep down to the bone tired.

The weight of life itself is crushing me down.

Doing groceries.
Keeping a clean house.
Cooking healthy meals. Figuring out what is healthy. Fighting the urge to eat whipped cream every night.
Doing laundry and actually folding it before we run out of clean underwear again.
Getting the kid to brush her hair, brush her teeth, take a shower.
Getting her to pick up her shoes, pick up her clothes, pick up her books, pick up her toys.
Getting her to wear her ballet tights to ballet, her gi pants to jiu jitsu and her flip flops to anywhere.
Getting her to bed and harder yet getting myself to bed at a decent hour.
Reading books more and surfing my iPhone less.
Finding a time other than the end of an exhausting day to make love.

One life. A million things to do. A million things to plan for. A million things to take care of. A million things to worry about.
I’m drowning in the millions.

I don’t even like being around myself most of the time.

I know I need to change. I need to fret less and relax more. Yet thinking about calming down only makes me feel more anxious. Ultimately, it’s one more thing to figure out. The most important one at that. The pressure is enormous.

If I don’t manage that one thing, I’ll ruin my health, ruin my relationship with my daughter, maybe ruin my marriage too.
Stress will swallow up everything. What it can’t swallow it will devour, patiently, tenaciously, one small bite at a time. It is one daunting adversary and it’s knocked me down this round. But so long as I’m still breathing, I’ve still got a fight in me.

Stress might end up killing me but, one thing it can count on: I won’t go without giving it a heck of a hard time.

This essay was written on a morning where getting my daughter to ballet took much more effort than should be required. I was tired that day and maybe hormones were at play too. I felt this big ball of stress on my shoulders as I sat down to write during her class and decided to let it roll onto the “paper”. By the end of the day, I had regained my sense of humor and laughed pretty hard when I read the essay aloud to my husband. This was just “one of  those days”. 🙂

Please “like” and “share” to help me reach more people. You can also subscribe using the widget below and you’ll be notified when I post a new essay. Thank you for reading.