Completing the Stress Cycle
It has been 2 weeks. I have JUST started opening the door to my home and felt like it was my home again. It is quiet. It smells like my house. The sense of calm I was craving - the calm that only walking into your own home can provide to you -is back. You know what this feels like.
But have I felt joy? No. Exhilaration? No. Pure adrenaline? No.
My friends ask “Are you so happy?” "Does it feel so good?”
I mean, yes. But also no.
I know that her in this apartment is a temporary reprieve. It is 5% of the total that needs to be completed before this is over. This was the part I had the impact to move forward. The rest of it is completely out of our control and before it is all over we will need to have so many more hard conversations with her. I enjoy the sense of calm that is returning but I feel that the stop button hasn’t been pushed; only the pause button.
Last weekend a friend sent me the link to the Brene Brown podcast talking with the authors of the book Burnout. They talk about emotional burnout. They dig deep into the importance of completing the stress cycle and explain how just because the stressor is eliminated it doesn’t mean the stress has evaporated.
Talk about a lightening bolt to the soul. It hit me so hard. It was so exactly what I was feeling and where I was at. We don’t have a roommate anymore but it doesn’t mean life is back to normal. She was an extra level of stress piled on top of us. We are still in a pandemic. School routines are still changing and forcing us to adjust - again. The election.. omg. Holidays are around the corner while case counts are jumping and we kept casually talking about how winter was going to be hard and then BAM. In the space of 7 days we went from 80 degrees to winter. At least we didn’t have to rake this year.
So… yeah. Our roommate moving out didn’t magically make me feel better. Her leaving just removed a layer. All of the rest of the crud is still there. Every day I wake up focus on doing my best to support the education and the soul and the emotional heart of my child, doing my best to move the business forward in a meaningful way while all the rules are breaking, doing my best to support my spouse as he is burning out on his own from a long and sustained spike in volume we could never have prepared for - while at the same time navigating through unprecedented production and supply chain issues, and then last but not least doing my best to take care of me and my own health and just trying my damnest to make dinner every night. Honestly that is all I have time for. Period. I have missed things and I will continue to miss things and that is just how it is. My free time is spent very intentionally focused on completing the stress cycle.