Strap In and Hang On
Today has been a rough day. Not at the level "someone I love died" but at the level of "I don't know how to do what people are depending on me to do." At this point I have gone beyond frustration to the point of alternating between shaking hysterically in laughter and wanting to get in my van and drive far away from it all. (Of course, my van is a disaster and desperately needs to be cleaned, so I don't know how much of an escape it would be.)
Normally, I get through the schedule stress of May by promising myself that as soon as I get to June I can relax. I know I won't have to get my kids to six hundred different events, there will be time to maybe sleep in til 6 am some days, and I might get to play around a bit. But this year-- I finished the mad race til the end of May, got the kids out of school, and *boom*-- a whole lotta stuff dropped into my lap. I knew about most of it, but mentally I'd been coping with it by refusing to think about it at all.
Now I have to think about it. And now I have very little time to get ready. Summer is a series of trips and camps and projects that need to be done. The stress is piling up fast. I know I'm not alone here. "Vacations" are not vacations for mom. They are an opportunity to kill yourself getting the house ready, the car ready, the kids packed and ready, possibly even your spouse ready only to go somewhere else and deal with kids who are hyped up, off their sleep schedule, and eating a whole lot of junk food. (If your vacations go better than this, I envy you.) As an added measure of fun, I almost always end up with an incapacitating day-long headache sometime during the trip. Except when I get something more fun, like the stomach flu (last July's vacation, for example). So yeah, just trying to get ready for the fact that there is not a single week until the end of July when all my family is at home, no trips or camps, has been mentally freaking me out.
Then today, it all kicked up another level. So this weekend my blood pressure meds ran out. I ordered the refill last Wednesday, and by Saturday when it still hadn't come in, I went to the pharmacy to find out what the problem was. They informed me that it hadn't been 90 days since my last refill so my insurance wouldn't cover it. But my "90 day" supply of meds is out, I protested. Not the pharmacy's problem, apparently. I could pay $70 for the prescription then or wait until Monday when my insurance would cover it.
I'm waiting until Monday. But this REALLY isn't a good time to be off my meds.
Then my period, always a guessing game nowadays, decided that it was time to have an epic flood-level day. Let's just say church was an adventure. Not to be outdone, my brain decided a splitting headache would top things off nicely.
When I came home from church I told the kids they were on their own and crawled into bed. Two hours later I got up and managed to make pancakes and spaghetti for dinner (what a combo, right?) My headache has eased, even if my exhaustion (probably from low iron) is still weighing me down. But the real killer is the stress. I have a list of stuff so long I barely know where to start. I really, really wanted Terence to come home and hold me and tell me it was all going to be OK.
Sundays we don't see much of Terence, at least until evening. And tonight, when he finally walked in the door (we were eating dinner and watching the Face to Face broadcast with President Nelson), he was even more stressed than I am. With his own headache to boot. He's been handed a ginormous mess related to boy scouts and church and told he needs to figure it out before scout camp in two weeks.
Let's just say tonight is probably not the night to come visit us. When I'm on edge and even my easy-going husband is stressing to the point of having a headache, we are in for a roller coaster ride.
Time to hold tight. It will pass, one way or another. Just got to take it one day at a time.
Normally, I get through the schedule stress of May by promising myself that as soon as I get to June I can relax. I know I won't have to get my kids to six hundred different events, there will be time to maybe sleep in til 6 am some days, and I might get to play around a bit. But this year-- I finished the mad race til the end of May, got the kids out of school, and *boom*-- a whole lotta stuff dropped into my lap. I knew about most of it, but mentally I'd been coping with it by refusing to think about it at all.
Now I have to think about it. And now I have very little time to get ready. Summer is a series of trips and camps and projects that need to be done. The stress is piling up fast. I know I'm not alone here. "Vacations" are not vacations for mom. They are an opportunity to kill yourself getting the house ready, the car ready, the kids packed and ready, possibly even your spouse ready only to go somewhere else and deal with kids who are hyped up, off their sleep schedule, and eating a whole lot of junk food. (If your vacations go better than this, I envy you.) As an added measure of fun, I almost always end up with an incapacitating day-long headache sometime during the trip. Except when I get something more fun, like the stomach flu (last July's vacation, for example). So yeah, just trying to get ready for the fact that there is not a single week until the end of July when all my family is at home, no trips or camps, has been mentally freaking me out.
Then today, it all kicked up another level. So this weekend my blood pressure meds ran out. I ordered the refill last Wednesday, and by Saturday when it still hadn't come in, I went to the pharmacy to find out what the problem was. They informed me that it hadn't been 90 days since my last refill so my insurance wouldn't cover it. But my "90 day" supply of meds is out, I protested. Not the pharmacy's problem, apparently. I could pay $70 for the prescription then or wait until Monday when my insurance would cover it.
I'm waiting until Monday. But this REALLY isn't a good time to be off my meds.
Then my period, always a guessing game nowadays, decided that it was time to have an epic flood-level day. Let's just say church was an adventure. Not to be outdone, my brain decided a splitting headache would top things off nicely.
When I came home from church I told the kids they were on their own and crawled into bed. Two hours later I got up and managed to make pancakes and spaghetti for dinner (what a combo, right?) My headache has eased, even if my exhaustion (probably from low iron) is still weighing me down. But the real killer is the stress. I have a list of stuff so long I barely know where to start. I really, really wanted Terence to come home and hold me and tell me it was all going to be OK.
Sundays we don't see much of Terence, at least until evening. And tonight, when he finally walked in the door (we were eating dinner and watching the Face to Face broadcast with President Nelson), he was even more stressed than I am. With his own headache to boot. He's been handed a ginormous mess related to boy scouts and church and told he needs to figure it out before scout camp in two weeks.
Let's just say tonight is probably not the night to come visit us. When I'm on edge and even my easy-going husband is stressing to the point of having a headache, we are in for a roller coaster ride.
Time to hold tight. It will pass, one way or another. Just got to take it one day at a time.
Comments