I have had the great fortune of not being stressed for a very long time. My time seems to have now run out. My paintings sit idle, waiting for me to get back to work on them, but somehow my mind can’t even go there right now. My older son Asa moved to North Dakota last month to work for his uncle in the construction business. I got a call in the middle of the night earlier this week. Asa was in the hospital, needing immediate surgery for appendicitis. He is 21 but this was a big move for him away from home, and now he found himself in extreme pain and distress, overwhelmed with being in a hospital facing surgery and mom not being there by his side. I did my best to reassure him and talked about all kinds of other things to help distract him. He got through surgery just fine. But then last night he called sobbing because he was in such pain after the surgery. The pain meds were not working and he felt like he was alone and nobody was there to help him. I was able to talk to his nurse and get him a shot of something stronger. It was so hard though – being so far away and not being able to really help him, to hold his had and comfort him.
My younger son Jake also became sick about the same time. Initially I thought it was a cold, but he continued to be so sick, his eyes itched and burned, he was sneezing and really congested. The skin around his swollen eyes was red – he looked horrible! I determined that it was not a cold, but allergies – but to what? I had to think back to what had happened prior to his getting sick – he played at his neighbors who has cats and he is allergic to cats, but has played there before without such a dramatic reaction. He had started a nasal spray specifically for allergies but I didn’t think that was it. We had gotten some new blankets from a neighbor that she had picked up second hand. Wait! I put the blanket on his bed without washing it before hand! If there had been cats laying on it and he had it up to his face, that would account for his allergies! So I removed the blanket and gave him some allergy medicine – and he seems to be getting better. Thank God!
Today, my pellet stove was not working right so I opened it to clean it. Shut it back up and turned it on – it wouldn’t light. Geez!!! It is 10 degrees outside and my main heat source isn’t working. Great. I gather all the space heaters I have. Plugged one of them in and it tripped the breaker. Fixed that. In the basement there is an old-fashioned wood stove with a vent going up into the kitchen – so I got a fire going in that. The smoke goes up into the rest of the house – lovely. My friend came over and helped me get the pellet stove going by manually lighting it. We shut it back up and within ten minutes, the glass in the door cracked. It still doesn’t work quite right but at least it is going and will be okay enough until the landlord is able to come over with the parts to fix it.
On top of all that, someone got pissy with me about something today and that really sent me over the edge. Unfortunately I got a bit pissy right back – probably not the best thing to do. So now I am unable to focus on anything and it is driving me crazy! I need to paint – I am behind. My dishes are stacked up in the kitchen sink. My laundry is piling up. And I cannot get myself to start anything! I tell myself it is okay, that taking a day off won’t hurt, the dishes and laundry will wait for me – but somehow it doesn’t help. I think I just need to allow myself to be stressed today, have my little pity party and then pull myself back up and start over again tomorrow. I think that will work. And if not I will just get myself a big bag of candy and a glass of wine and watch romantic comedies. Maybe I’ll skip the pity party and just go to option two. Or I can have the pity party AND the candy, wine and movies – now that sounds like a plan I can live with.
amylenore 