The Oncoming Overwhelm and Why People Should be Nicer to Women

Was it just me, or was last week an "off" week?  Did anyone else feel like that?

It probably started on Saturday.  Some friends and I went to a Renaissance Faire (shut up, you know you wish you were this cool) to, you know, eat turkey legs and people watch, and I was just not with it.  I was with two of my favorite people and just kept feeling like a total spaz.  I was lost in my own head, not really a part of the day.  I felt myself tuning in and out of conversation, thinking about things that had nothing to do with jousting, dirty jokes or palm reading.  The day, in the end, was wasted on me since I just couldn't pull my shit together and rally. 

Then the week began and my work email hosting service bested me in the worst possible way.  What was initially supposed to be the quick task of migrating mail from one host to two others (because I'm stupid and picky and want to use the calendar on one service and the mail on another.  Don't ask.) ended up being me, four hours later, screaming at my computer, close to tears as Nate ignores his work and frantically tries retrieve all the email I somehow deleted from one account and accomplish the fucking impossible by getting it into another account.  I hate my email.  We're still not on speaking terms and my messages are still not where I need them to be.

So there was that.

Then it was just a bunch of other little things.  It was my first week working solo in my part-time position and there's always a learning curve, but the little mistakes made while learning new processes always makes me feel incompetent.  And an author Nate and I love spoke on the same night as the first Presidential debate and we had to choose which to see.  We chose to debate which, after watching it, obviously WE CHOSE WRONG.

Finally, on Thursday things just got weird.  Let me preface by saying I only had one cup of coffee.  One cup.  So there I am, alone in the office, trying to get through a stack of things, listening to Pandora, and I'm positively jittery.  I am giggly and fidgety, dancing around in my rolling chair, lip syncing like I was Milli Vanilli.  I mean, I was having a moment.  And to cap off this shining moment, I got a call back about a pretty sweet job that I applied for.  They want to interview me so yay!  Celebrate!  Fast-forward three hours later and I'm practically crying.  Did something happen, you ask?  Did I get some bad news?  Did I make some horrible misstep at work?  You guys.  Nothing is clear at this point except that I am AN EMOTIONAL BASKET CASE.

And so there I am, no longer dancing, no longer feeling like Milli Vanilli, and I start thinking of the week, of the fact that this overwhelm has been building for days.  I should have seen this coming, right?  And that's interesting, because there's really not a whole lot for me to feel overwhelmed about right now.  So what is it?

Why am I feeling super irrational, super emotional, super just a big fucking mess?

Ohhh, PMS.  You.  Win.

Once I actually realized what was going on, my choices for dealing became absolutely clear.  I cancelled all plans I had for the weekend -- which, unfortunately, included a free bluegrass concert in the park where The Civil Wars were playing -- and told Nate that we were going to take it easy, get out of town, and spend some time together.  I wanted as low-stress of a two-days as humanly possible.  No crowds, no big productions, just peace and quiet and time to let the overwhelm settle, let the hormones run their course.

It's Sunday, and I'm feeling like a brand new woman.

Lessons learned?  Be intentional with your time.  Listen to yourself enough to recognize what it is you need at that moment, and then give it to yourself.

And also, be nicer to women.  We are fucking champions.

My Own Brand of Self-Care

There's something to be said about being gentle with yourself.  Being kind, being forgiving.  Even being comforting.  I know all of this, I've journaled about it, I've said I'm going to really give it a try.  But I'll be the first to admit that, if you're like me and this is just not your default setting, it can be pretty difficult.

But I tried to keep this gentleness in mind this morning when things started to feel piss-poor and overwhelming.  I tried to breathe through my stress over some emails and commitments, I tried to take my dog for a walk and enjoy the cool morning and quiet neighborhood, I told myself I didn't need to run today if I didn't really want to, I tried to remember that I really do enjoy hangtime with friends even when its at the end of a long to-do list.  I even tried to meditate.

Yes.  I did.

And when all that didn't work, when the emails still irritated me, when I wanted to yell at my neighbor to keep his damn dog on a leash and not bring it over to mine after I tell him that Finn has some dog-issues, when my commitments were just too much, and -- here is the root of it -- when I heard back that I didn't get yet another job, one that, while it had it's own set of problems, would have been a great opportunity for me, I broke.

I threw meditation out the window (it wasn't working for me anyway, in part because Finn thought that by mama sitting on the floor it was time to play with his ball), bailed on one of my commitments (I'm lousy company right now), laced up my shoes (since I couldn't not run when I said I would and bear one more self-disappointment today), got my loud pop/punk girl music on (i.e. Paramore, The Veronicas, Hey Monday, etc.), and tried to exhaust the frustration out of my system.

Why loud music and running helped me when nothing else could this morning, I don't know.  Maybe when the music's loud I don't have the brain space to worry anymore without giving myself an aneurism.  Maybe when I'm running I'm so concentrated on not falling on my face that there's no room to focus on the stress.  Maybe it's endorphins.  Who the hell knows? 

But I think I've figured out that this is how I'm good to myself.  This is how I'm comforting.  Loud music, physical exhaustion, that works for me.  It may not be gentle, but it's its own unique brand of kind, I guess.  And, hey, I'm feeling better now.  Not 100% -- I didn't get the job, after all -- but at least I'm not so down anymore.