Stress Relief

Take one of these and call me in 1:42

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Sixth Grade Gaga

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That Time of the Year

My head is about to explode with all of the things that are going on.  This kind of tension and stress is cyclical: I guess I would probably not appreciate quiet times without it, right?  As in, I would probably give my left boob for a good night's sleep and some job security right now.  Alas, it is not to be.

(This is not my head exploding.  It's the view of the Jordan's Meat Fire from my backyard.

But this is 1) one of the many things I cried about yesterday, and 

2) exactly what the inside of my brain feels like)

Most of the stuff that keeps threatening to shoot out of my forehead in a giant smelly black cloud has to do with regular life kind of stuff: a tween who is tweening, funding changes for my workplace and thus job insecurity, car repair, wedding planning, mother's day.  The vaguely stressful stuff that is annoying but not life-ending.  

Which would all be fine except that my baseline stress level is increased by a hundred degrees to start with because I'm having another surgery on my lady parts in a few weeks.  It's going to be expensive (thanks for the ultra-expensive health insurance that doesn't, it turns out, cover much at all!), and of course I'm not looking forward to the pain and time off from work and helplessness of recovery.  But more than all that, I'm afraid that it won't work, and I will have exercised my very last treatment option.

So, I keep having breakdowns about stuff like whether I eat lunch alone, and who takes a shower first in the morning, and whether the cat is in for the night.  The princess has been remarkably patient, and in appreciation of her kindness I am not completely withdrawing into myself and becoming mute.  This is my usual tactic for stress, and she aptly calls it "turtling."  I resist turtling and she pats my leg and brings me a sandwich, which is, I think, a fair tradeoff.  And helps.  A lot.