While that's another's famous opening line, it's true here, too. The kids and I met my mom and stepdad at Ikea in Minneapolis last Saturday. We had kottbullar (meatballs) and lingon and it did my little Svensk-Americansk heart a lot of good. No, they don't taste anything like Grandma Betty's, but they'll do. We had a browse and then they went their way back to Detroit Lakes and I went my way back to Grinnell. Alone. We'll do this again in a couple of weeks.
Alone? I know, right? A couple of weeks!
Like a kid looking forward to summer vacation, the whole idea of being only responsible for my own self and no one else spreads out in front of me like the toy section from Sears and Roebuck. The potential! The possibilities! I can eat what and when I want to for supper! I can go to bed at 8 if I wanna. I can control the TV remote!
Two days into my amazing vacation, the stress of life starts finding its way out of me. I am exhausted. Monday morning, I can hardly haul myself out of bed. I go into work late morning only to turn around and come right back home to bed and sleep for two hours, awakened only by the phone. I feel numb and beat. Seriously, I don't even want coffee. Referring to my ethnic heritage, coffee is the drink of my people. Russians have vodka, Brits have tea, Swedes drink coffee. Copious amounts. I have no desire for the stuff this week. It's as if my body has said that I am beyond coffee. I need rest, not caffeine.The last time this happened, I later learned that I was expecting my son John. I can assure you without a doubt that is certainly not the case this time. So what is it?
It's stress. Honestly.
We coast along through life thinking that we got this. It's all good. Make the lists, check the boxes, we got it goin' on, don't we Baby?
But our bodies tell a different story. We are bathing in our own stress hormones and we don't even know it. Have you ever been working toward some goal or event, a date on the calendar and then you end up sick a few days after? When our bodies finally have a chance to let down, the stress comes out.
I miss my kiddos, no doubt about it and I'll be very glad when they come back home. But I also realize that as a single parent I need to particularly aware of this. To do things on my own, to be myself and not always in parent mode. Making time for myself and finding time to be alone is not easy, but hugely important. It's a little trickier than it seems to get used to being alone. I'm an extrovert who needs alone time, but this is a lot of alone time for me. I suspect I'll get the hang of this about two days before they come home.
This is the shape of things to come. With a rising high school sophomore and seventh grader, I have more of this time to look forward to. Perhaps I need to see these weeks on my own as practice for the real thing.
In the meantime, it's time to recognize that my stress levels are far higher than I realize and I need to be taking it seriously. Rest. Exercise. Eating well. Spending evenings with friends and those I love. Reading good books and trashy ones, too. Living life well means being a human being, not a human doing.
Is it time for you to step out of the shower of stress, too?
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