Stress

I am the problem?

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

Okay, I have something that I have to admit. I didn’t vote last week.

I apparently am the problem within my state and country right now.

But wait, before you unfollow…I have an excuse. Gum disease. You heard me right.

Monday I had my regularly scheduled dental check up. For the record, I think that dentists and everyone associated with the dental field are sadists. They seem to take great joy in my pain. And if the dental procedure doesn’t hurt, the bill sure will.

Back to Monday, the hygenist told me that I needed to come in as soon as possible for a deep cleaning. I scheduled an appointment for the following day over the lunch hour.

So when Tuesday rolled around, I went to the gym in the morning to work out. After that, I hurried off to work so I could leave early for the dentist.

After 20 minutes of painful drilling, I asked the hygenist what I did wrong. She said that gum disease is caused by poor hygiene. I pleaded that I floss several times a week and brush several times a day. I argued my innocence like a convicted felon who was incarcerated for a crime never commited. Paul said that everyone probably says they have good hygiene even if they don’t.

Really, is there a wrong way to floss??

Gum disease could also be cause by stress and hormones and I am sticking to it.

I got poked, prodded, and slapped with a $200 bill.

For a couple of hours after the appointment, I felt like crap. I don’t know if I’m getting an ulcer or if it was the aftermath of the extreme anxiety I feel towards dentists.

I went back to work with the idea that I would leave early to vote. That didn’t work out because we had an employee call in so I had to stay late.

I barely made it home in time to eat something before play practice. How could I go vote?

We just moved and I couldn’t find any mail sitting around associated with my name and new address. Plus the cars outside of where I would vote were lined up into the next county. How could I zip in and out before my next time committment??

So I didn’t vote. I am the problem with this country right now. Good intentions don’t count as a ballot. Might as well blame it on the dentist. Yeah, why not??

 

Healing wounds

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

My mom hasn’t been feeling well since she retired. At first, the doctor thought that she was having problems with her gallbladder. But instead, she found out that she has an ulcer which she attributes to the stress in her life. I think that working and keeping busy kept her mind off of it. I understand because that is how I cope.

It has been a rough year for my mom. It’s been hard since she took my brother off of his anti-psychotic medicine due to some health issues. Matt started hallucinating again and became fixated on wanting to hurt my brother Luke’s daughter.

My mom was looking out for the best interests of Matt and my brother Luke was concerned about protecting his family from Matt. This caused a lot of conflict.

It stirred the demons from our childhood within Luke. This was a very painful time for Luke. But it was also a catalyst for him to process, deal with it, and heal. I’ve found that the healing process is very difficult. It has forced both of us to deal with feelings that are unexpected that we have never processed before.

It is hard for my mom. She says that it is very hard to deal with a child that isn’t okay. She spent day to day just trying to survive. I can understand that more now that I have teenagers. I worry all the time about how the decisions my son makes will affect his whole entire life. It’s a heavy burden to carry worrying that your child is falling but nothing you can do will pick them up. I somewhat understand.

Luke feels a lot of anger towards my mom for favoring Matt over him and even over the safety of his children. Matt will always be first in my mother’s life and I have come to accept that. I was once in Luke’s place when Matt wanted to hurt my kids. I had to have boundaries. I had to be the bad guy. I had to isolate myself from my family when I needed their help the most. I understand.

It’s not easy and there isn’t an easy answer. Some good has come out of it though. Luke started the healing process. We have been having a lot of deep conversations and working through this together. For the first time, we have each other. Sometimes good can come out of bad. This has given us strength that we never thought we had.

Matt has been back on his medicine for awhile and is passive again. The voices in his head have been quieted. It’s surprising how long it has taken for the rest of us to heal our wounds. Slowly, surely we are on the mend.

numb

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Lost, that is what I would call him.

Never to be found?

Wandering around.

Trouble, the kind he might never find a way out of.

Keep him in your prayers because no one else cares.

Homeless, yet at times living in my home.

It’s too cold to be sleeping on a park bench.

Sleeping on the floor in my son’s room.

Arms wrapped around the dog at night for comfort.

Keep him in your prayers because no one else cares.

Bouncing from home to home…only 17.

Skipping out of school.

No hope?

Will he even graduate?

Keep him in your prayers because no one else cares.

Numbing his mind with whatever he can find.

He could die on the streets and no one would lose sleep.

Numb, the word permanently etched on his face

under his eye with a vacant stare.

It’s been a long time since he cut his hair.

Keep him in your prayers because no one else cares.

He’s drowning and pulling others down with him.

We had to break free of his grip.

Our son, we can only help save one.

But he is not out of the water yet..

numb

A house plant for not being a wall flower

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I’m not going to lie to you. Sometimes life can be a drag when you are responsibly adulting.

I feel like my life consists of problems at work followed by problems at home mixed in with laundry and household chores.

It’s a difficult time of year for me. The sailboat is snuggling under tarps on the shore. Hot summertime breezes and swimming at sandy beaches are put away until next year. I have to face the treadmill again. I haven’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when. Gone are the weekends at the cabin up north. The things I love the most have been taken away in preparation of a cold dark winter.

That is why it is so important to take whatever joy you can find.

I was excited to go to a friend’s Halloween party this past weekend. At the wedding of my BFF’s son, a stranger came up to me and said that I look like Marilyn Monroe. Now granted, the guy was pretty drunk and probably couldn’t see straight. It was then that I decided to pull my Marilyn Monroe costume out of storage for the party. Once I did, I noticed the white dress had brown spots all over it. I threw it in the wash, hoping that the stains would come out.

I decided if the dress did not get clean in the wash, I would buy fake blood and smear myself in dirt to become zombie Marilyn Monroe. I was almost more excited about that idea, but the stains came out.

That night I left my worries (demons, responsibilities…) behind. I drank some home brew, sat by the campfire, played games, danced…all the regular house party stuff…and I totally let my guard down.

The next day I realized that the night before I thought it would be a good idea (as a black thumb) to give a home to a 6 ft tall half dead tropical plant. Oh, what did I do??

No more parties for me I guess. Just a cold sober changing of the seasons and a tropical house plant to remind me of the things I don’t have, summer.

 

Parenthood watch

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

We saw the first snowfall at our new house when the parents of Alex’s friend arrived on the chilly autumn Saturday afternoon. It felt rather ominous of what was yet to come, but at the same time brilliant and beautiful.

The other parents were concerned about how much partying our sons were doing. We decided to get together as a group with another set of parents and just talk, a support group so to say for parents of wayward sons. These boys are all good kids really. They just took a detour down the wrong path. They are partying and failing classes. They aren’t picking fights, stealing, destroying property…

I am making an effort to stop lying to myself. Part of that means facing the fact that my son may never go to college. I thought up to a month ago that he was going to college after graduating. Back when he was in grade school, Alex wanted to be an accountant. I had to ask the teacher to give him more challenging math. Then in middle school and high school, he barely passed math. In fact, he is failing his math class as we speak.

I lied to myself. I’ve been lying to myself for a long time. I’ve been telling myself that he is still that boy in grade school that needs more challenging math. But he really is the party boy that doesn’t give a crap about school. If we come down on him too hard for partying, then we fear that he will leave home and not even finish high school. It is very heartbreaking to see him waste his brilliant mind. It is so much easier to lie to myself.

I don’t have any control over the path he decides to take when he leaves here. It has been causing us a lot of grief. I hope and pray that he matures and grows out of it. Until then, now we have a group of parents that are just as concerned as we are. We might not be able to keep them from taking the wrong path, but at least we don’t have to deal with this alone.

Last night we had our first parenthood watch meeting. We shared our stories about our sons which were remarkably similar…

We are going to have a parenthood watch meeting once a month and exchanged numbers. It’s time for us to work together and do what we can to make things better. It’s not a lot of fun to deal with this alone.

 

What now???

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

Sometimes life can be stressful. When I am not busy at work, raising teenagers, or slaying my demons…I try to relax.

Work requires me to make a lot of high level decisions that effect other people’s lives. Someday I will tell you about it all, but not today. Last Friday we had a new client do some work with us and he didn’t understand the whole process of what we do. So rather unexpectedly he conference called me and chewed me out saying that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for over a decade and he is a brand new client…and I don’t know what I’m doing??

After 30 minutes of trying to explain the process, which he wasn’t listening to, I was pissed off and wanted to tell him to take his business somewhere else. But I remained fairly cool and calm. I sent him an email with answers to frequently asked questions. But that still did not satisfy him.

I ended up sending him over to my husband Paul. Paul makes higher high level decisions and often deals with difficult clients, makes collection calls, and other stuff I couldn’t stomach doing. When the guy started to complain about me, Paul said that I am his operations manager and also his wife. Shut the guy right up.

Running a business together can be very stressful. Sometimes we have to make hard calls. I have lost a lot of faith in people. Sometimes it feels like it is us against the world. I think working together has made us closer as a couple. We make a great team both at home and at work. I can’t complain because we make an excellent living. But that doesn’t make it any less stressful.

Although most of the time I enjoy what I do, work is a big stressor in my life. I try to relax, usually unsuccessfully, over the weekend.

On Saturday morning I received a phone call from a parent of Alex’s friend saying that she wanted to come over with her husband and talk to us right away.

I could almost feel my ulcer burn. What now????

longevity

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

My daughter Arabella is currently taking health as a high school class. A week ago she had to take a longevity quiz and just for fun she asked Paul and I the questions as well.

Today I am sitting in the waiting room at the hospital waiting for Paul to complete an uncomfortable procedure that happens once a person reaches the magical age of 50. It gets one to think about life, and death.

At the beginning, I did very well on the longevity test. I smugly thought that I would be my family’s first centurion. I am doing a lot of things right. I eat my vegetables. I drink in moderation. I am not overweight or underweight. My parents are still alive. I take my vitamins. I go in for regular check ups. My cholesterol and blood pressure are low. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs.

Plus, I am a marathon runner. I mean, that should count for a lot more than exercising three times a week for a half an hour. Right??

I was feeling pretty good.

I am literally going to live forever. I probably won’t even die. I will be the only person to live forever without turning into a vampire first.

Then the questions took a bit of a negative turn…

Do you easily feel bored or depressed? Yes

Do you often feel stressed out? Yes

Do you always feel like you are in a hurry? Yes, yes, yes…

Do you listen to your body? No! When my body tells me to stop, my mind says push harder. Is that a problem??

Do you worry a lot? I am really starting to feel worried now.

My daughter said that according to the test, I am supposed to live to 85. Paul is supposed to live to 75 (with the average female living longer than the average male). So if her calculations are right, then I will outlive my husband by 16 years (he is 6 years older).

We’ll see…

The procedure went fine without any issues.

We might not know how long we will live (even after taking the health class longevity quiz and going in for procedures). But what we can do is try to make the most of the years we have been given.

 

 

Two steps forward, one back

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

Yesterday was a horrible day. At least some good did come out of it. Right when I was ready to publish yesterday’s post about my son quitting band, his band teacher called me. She said that Alex came to her and talked about all of the things that were bothering him about band. They had a good conversation and she said that Alex decided to stay in band, although at this time he is failing the class.

If the conflict is resolved(?), do I still post about it? I felt unsettled about the post anyway. Do you ever feel that way? Unsettled about something that you wrote? I told myself that I could always delete the post if I wanted to. I did that once before because I felt so uncomfortable, so sick about it, so unsettled like it was clawing too close to my demons.

Yesterday started off poorly. I got a text right away in the morning that one of the employee’s called in sick. I was planning on leaving a little early to pick Arabella up from her after school activities and staying home. Arabella invited 5 of her friends over from her old school for a pool party. I held off shutting down the pool for that very occasion. In the end, only one friend said that she could come over. She was on the way over when Arabella told her that I had to work later since someone didn’t show up. Her dad wouldn’t drop her off because I wasn’t there even though I would be home shortly.

I felt so frustrated. Having an employee call in last minute screwed up my day. I felt bad for Arabella. It’s hard to make friends at a new high school. I was hoping that she could still stay in touch with some of her old friends.

Then yesterday morning we had a staff meeting. I heard my cell phone go off. I jokingly said that it was the school calling only to find out later that it was. Hearing my cell phone ring during the work day always unnerves me. The school called to tell me that my son skipped out of school. When I got a hold of him, he told me that he just didn’t feel like going to school. I could hear some of his friends in the background and I could only surmise what they were up to.

I was so angry and upset that it was really hard to focus on what I was doing at work. Thoughts burned through my mind about him not even graduating from high school. I was furious. I called him and yelled at him. The conversation ended with me saying that if you can’t follow our rules then maybe you need to find another place to live. He doesn’t realize it yet, but he has it made. What I wouldn’t have given to have an easy breezy childhood like his.

I needed to maintain control, be calm and collected to brood and think. We told Alex that we would meet with him that night to have a little talk. I couldn’t leave work early and Paul had a board meeting after work. The responsibilities never seem to end. Paul did most of the talking during our conversation that night. He was calm, which I was happy about, although I did not feel that way. Apparently one of our new house rules is that our kids cannot skip school. Gosh, we are so mean.

I’m not sure if anything got through to him. But, hey, he is back in band. It’s always two steps forward and one step back with him.

I think once he graduates, I’m going to need a really long vacation. If I can make it until then without going absolutely out of my mind crazy!!

perspective

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

This morning I paced the floor. I felt anxious and stressed. Only 8 1/2 months to go. But who’s counting?

He overslept. Things were going so well the whole two days since school started, until today that is. He left at the time he should’ve been at school which is problematic since we moved further away. He had over a half an hour drive before picking up two friends on the way.

My son will be the death of me. If I disappear from the bloggosphere someday, you’ll know why.

Being late stresses me out. But since I am not one to be late, I am stressed out vicariously through my kids.

It put me in a really negative and anxious mood. I know I shouldn’t let my kid’s tardiness affect my day. But it is hard to just let it go sometimes.

Then I opened up Facebook this morning and saw a memory from a race I ran several years back with Lisa and her teen daughter that recently passed away in a car accident. We all placed in the small town race and were showing off our medals. Lisa’s daughter won’t be going to school today. She won’t be graduating, going to college, having a family…any of that. Maybe if she overslept she would still be alive, instead of falling asleep behind the wheel.

It really puts things into perspective.

Will my son’s tardiness be something that I will think about next year? It is incredibly frustrating today. Sometimes I need the little reminders to be thankful for the days we have together. I only have a few months left with him under my roof.

I’m trying to let go and not let his mistakes ruin my day.

 

Biking the rat race

/ Outrunning my demons / 3 Comments

This morning I thought I would go for a bike ride at first light. My kids already left for school and I thought that maybe for once working out wouldn’t conflict with work.

It wasn’t my best idea. I got caught up in the rat race of people rushing to get to work and school.

I had to slow down for the neighboring school’s buses. I counted 4 buses on my(?) route. Several passed me before stopping in front of me to pick up kids.

What would I do if I can’t unhook my shoes from the pedals?

I slowed down for a bus stop, then had to speed up because there were dogs out.

Interval training at its best.

Everyone that wasn’t on the road seemed to be letting their dogs out for the morning. Will they chase me??

I learned several things…First, the neighboring school district has nicer buses than ours. Second, I now know the garbage pick up schedule.

If I did fall off my bike surely everyone and their neighbor would see me….school children, moms holding hands of children waiting for the bus, and people taking out the trash. Maybe I would fall in a dumpster. Maybe I would get hit by a car, garbage truck, or bus.

There were wild turkeys grazing on the side of the road. I couldn’t hug the shoulder. I couldn’t hug the middle of my lane as the cars whizzed past..

Biking kind of makes me feel stressed out..

Why do I even do this anymore?

That’s right, I spent a lot of money on the bike.

It was a cool and windy day…soon it will come to an end and my bike will be put away for the winter…then next spring I will start all over again…but I probably won’t be biking the rat race anymore… I mean, I didn’t even get a participation award..