Just a Lost Soul Swimmin' in a Fish Bowl

My Life Needs a Safe Word April 2, 2012

Lately I’ve been a bit…. overwhelmed.

And I don’t mean the “Oh-Boy-Do-I-Need-A-Tall-Drink” kind of overwhelmed. Oh no-sir-ee!

I’m talking about the “For-The-Love-Of-God-Curled-Up-In-The-Corner-Of-The-Bathroom-Crying-My-Eyes-Out-And-Speaking-Gibberish” kind of overwhelmed. (Seriously, it’s bad. The Actual tried to coax me in to a better mood with The Lion King and wine and I didn’t even try to sing along.)

This? This is not normal.

You see, for as long as I can remember I have always been the kind of person that thrives when I have too much to do: sports, student government, becoming woman of the house when mom got cancer, classwork, homework, the shift to big-girl work, more sports, student managing, volunteer work, races, crafting, writing, grieving over loss of grandpa, letting baby brother move in, wedding planning, getting degree(s), dealing with my mother, and not to mention all the everyday things between. From the time I was about 7 years old, I was an unstoppable force of Type A mania that could power through anything.

But now? I guess my ability to handle a manic life has gone the way of my metabolism and patience for citizens under the age of 18 – down the proverbial spiral.

This has happened to me once before – it was my senior year of undergrad and rather than drink myself across the stage, I decided working part-time, managing the swim and dive team, working on my thesis, taking 15 credit hours both semesters, and joining the board of governance was a good idea. Well, ladies and gentlemen… I was wrong.

I wore myself so thin, the doctors at school thought I had mono (which is pretty bad considering their answer for everything usually was, “Take this pregnancy test.”) Turns out I was just over-tired, under-fed, and over-worked. I had to come to terms with the fact that I was not going to be able to handle all the things I wanted to do. I had to deal with failing.

Funny how history repeats itself, eh?

I am now officially swallowing my pride and admitting I bit off entirely more than I could chew. My working relationships with co-workers are tolerable (at best), my passion for work is ebbing faster than the novelty of the Twilight series, my upcoming nuptials are becoming more of a cause for anxiety than excitement (it is the honeymoon yet?), and my thesis has mutated in to a kind of creepy, jerky, glowey-eyed, drooling, snarling monster with no neck that I used to firmly believe took residence in my childhood closet.

I can’t do it all. I need to use my safe word – something will need to be put on hold. And I have a feeling it’s going to have to be that monster in my closet…