Funny what fall, stress and allergies do to you. Funny what we do to ourselves to augment stress. A friend of mine likes to tell me that stress is not "real." By which she means that it is all in our heads. And I guess it is, in a way. Still, that unreality triggers a really impressive biochemical reaction, one that expresses itself in different ways in different people. For me it is sleepless nights and allergies. Sure, yes, I know - fall and leaves and dust and all that. But it seems to be worse when I am fretting over something. Like being unemployed. Like living in my friends' spare bedroom. Like researching all the crap that goes into starting a new business.
So scratchy throat, itchy eyes, and sneezy me spends a lot of time gazing at the ceiling, fretting about all the stuff that I fret about. Which makes it worse. Which leads to more ceiling gazing. There are nights when I long for a switch to just turn my brain off. The endless loop of what ifs and concerns and oh mys and all of it, running around in my head like a group of demented hamsters tucked into those little clear plastic balls.
Sometimes I can derail myself, I find decorating fantasy homes is a good diversion. I have now decorated a dozen different places from a beach house in Croatia to a townhouse in Seattle. I have planned trips to Turkey, trips to Germany, trips to Costa Rica, and trips to visit friends. Sometimes it is enough just to try to list as many international cities as I can for each letter of the alphabet (yes, I have gotten all the way to Zagreb a few times).
There are upsides, of course. Having those quiet hours late at night, or early in the morning are often wonderful. There is something about early morning that is calming. There are nights when it allows me to finally finish a book, or spend time scribbling madly in a notebook (other diversions that help turn off the feedback loop in my brain). And sometimes it allows for a clarity of thought that surprises me. But it would be nice to not to have to yawn, sneeze and sniffle my way to get there!
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Beautifully said. Going through a great deal of that at the moment myself (stress, not allergies.) For it manifests in attempts to activate old tapes around nighttime and bedtime, fear of old physical sensations and general dis-ease. Which is pretty funny at the moment, since finance have never been better, I've never had a clearer long-term plan, and I'm in the best shape of my life. :) Wacky. Like you said, an impressive bio-chemical cascade.
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