Real Life Stress and Success

It's getting close to calling it a day as I sit here reflecting on today's activities.  I want to share not with the intent to get a pity party, but with the intent to help others who might be having a stressful day. 

In a few days my husband will be leaving out of town for work. He will not be gone too long but it is long enough for me to be a little stressed. I do consider myself an independent person, but having him around is what helps me be independent. Knowing I have an extra pair of hands, an extra pair of eyes, another parent to help, well, knowing he is there is sometimes all the help I really need. My stress comes from knowing that during the time he is on travel for work, I will not have him as my safety net. This is not the first time he is traveling for work and so it is not the first time I feel this type of stress. The first time he was out of town, I was worried because my kids were 4 and 7. Some things on our daily to-do list were not done. Some things on our weekly to-do list were not done. In the end, we made the best of it and it turned out okay, not perfect, but okay. My kids are now older and they have after school activities. Our days are full and during the evening we usually prep for the next day. On weekends we prep for the week so our week can be a little chaotic. I know there will be things we will have to adjust or flat out skip, we will make the best of it. My kids are understanding and I am sure they will flexible with any and all adjustments we will make, ... (I hope they at least keep the complaining to a minimum.) I know there will be some bumps and I will be able to handle/manage them but I can't manage to completely eliminate the little bit of stress I'm starting to feel.

Then there is anxiety. In the days leading up to his departure, he causes me anxiety. He needs to prep this for work and that for school, pack the thing-a-ma-jig for the trip and leave the thing-a-ma-bob at home. I hear him prepping and I get sucked in like I need to prep too. That right there is where my anxiety starts to show up. I feel anxious like I need to prep for this trip, the day "he" leaves is coming up and "I" have not packed anything. Really!?!? It may sound strange but seeing him prep this and that while I'm sitting there like a bump on a log doing nothing? I feel like I should be doing something too. This feeling stems from the fact that whenever we travel as a family I am usually the one that does the packing list, makes reservations, books hotels, ... Don't get me wrong, I don't do it all, there are things he takes care of things. He his usually stuff and I do my usually stuff and together we get it done. The point being, for this particular trip, which I am NOT going on, I'm doing nothing. I am so not the type to sit there and do nothing. I feel I need to be doing something. I can't let him do all the work. Wait! I'm not going on this trip. I have to keep telling myself, "I am not going on this trip."

Deep breath. I am keeping myself together and not doing mindless emotional eating.

So then life happens. My kid started complaining of some pain. Trying to get out of helping with the dishes? Today was day 3 of pain complaints and a new symptom showed up. Urgent Care here we come. It's 6:45am and I'm trying to juggle one kid's school drop off and pick up while taking the other kid to urgent care. I feel stress building up. Can I take care of both kids? Okay, I got the drop off and pick up taken care of and I even got some extra after school care if need be just in case Urgent Care takes a little longer or traffic is not in my favor. 

We get to Urgent Care and I see a loooooong line. The long line is the problem. The problem is it gives me time to start thinking and wondering if the source my kid's pain is this, or that, or could it be, no wait maybe it's, grrr. I don't know what to think. 

At the moment, I do not want to share what is going on with my kid. The doctor said it is a toss up between something simple and something not so simple. We go back in 4 days to get test results. In the mean time the doctor gave us antibiotics. 

The stress and anxiety I was managing, ... ugh, this afternoon, I was not managing it very well. Luckily I have some really good friends who know what is going on in my world. I did not have to say much and they knew exactly what was going on with me. They quickly stepped up and said there were there to help me. They are not there to judge me, they are there to sincerely offer help. If the tables were turned, I know I would help them without judgement too.

Sometimes all you need to do is speak up, open up and share what is going on in your world. Help is out there. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to accept help. BUT, you also need to learn how to help yourself.

To help calm my anxiety down and prevent myself from mindless eating, I started coloring, ... some food of course! It gave me the feeling of accomplishing something. I started and finished a task. It distracted my mind from the endless list of possible negative outcomes. By the end of coloring the page, I started thinking more clearly and felt a little peace in knowing, "I can handle this."