Snowball

Alright… So Jenn just called to say she’s going to be running late to pick me up, so I’ve got a few minutes with nothing to do.

I’m intrigued, and a little frightened, by the loops that stress makes. Here’s my latest little snowball.

Last week I had a client tell me I wasn’t going to get paid for a rent-sized project I’ve already put time and money into (she actually ended up paying me even though the end client isn’t paying her, but I didn’t know that at the time.) Slap on that I’ve started a new diet and my system is completely wacked. Wrap that all in a floury tortilla of anxiety because of the missed days of no power here in Saint Lou.

At the day job I’ve got a big 3D project that requires me to do all the programming, then hit “render” and walk away from it for a few days while the computer cranks out thousands of images. If the programming's screwed up in any way, or there’s even a slight fluctuation of power, I’ve dry-humped my deadline. Everyone, from the owner of the company, to the project manager, to, well, all the other happy little henchmen, are expecting this to be the cornerstone of their presentation on Wednesday morning.

So last Thursday, I started stressing hardcore when all the pointy heads still hadn’t finalized the room layout, and I couldn’t even begin working on the thing. I woke up at 2 in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Normally I would hop in my car and gone to work at times like that just so I was doing something, but since we’re down to 1 car, that wasn’t really practical. So I sat and stewed over it.

Now I handle stress differently then a lot of people. I don’t freak about it right then and there, I push it down, repress it, and generally do every other stupid machismo thing that eventually boil over days later when I'm standing in line at the Walgreen's and the woman in front of me can't decide if she wants to get her lung cancer in a box or soft pack, menthol or light, pays for it all in change, and is way way to loud because she's to fucking lazy to pause the Ipod.

So anyway, the next morning I went into work at the normal-ish time, busted my ass, and got the whole thing ready to render in a single day. I was pretty happy with myself, but again, there was that “hit render and walk away” issue that I had to deal with.

We were off buying the car on Saturday, which I also found stressful, but since Jenn kept asking me how excited I was about the car I kept smiling and thinking that if I put on my happy face there was a slight possibility of the drought being over later that night.

By Sunday, I started getting waves like someone was punching me in the chest from the inside. Jenn walked by when I was having one of these little episode (isn’t there something else to call them? They’re not “events”… nor should they be called “attacks”) and asked me what was going on. I was trying to come up with some nice way of saying “I’m having chest pains” without it sounding like something from Sanford and Son’s. Anyway, she didn’t freak out, but tells me to lie down and then takes the dog out for me. A little later on in the evening, she asks me how I’m doing and what I think the pains were. As I begin to answer, I notice that her eyes are welled up and the tears are rolling. Ugh. There are very few things that “get to me” but wife tears? Fuck. Fuckety fuck. This ain’t good. I try to explain that it was probably stress and re-explained to her all of this. She asked what would make me less stressed, so we ended up going back over to work and I checked the progress and tinkered for a few hours, with her there just to make sure I wasn’t going to keel over in my chair or something.

That night I got next to no sleep. I was up thinking about those tears. Thinking about how stressed I was because I had made my darling wife cry. Thinking about what I need to do to limit my stress. Correct that… STRESSING about what I need to do to limit my stress. How screwed up is that?