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There are days when it’s a real struggle to get words on the page. Sometimes just writing a short, easy statement can help with that. Some days is doesn’t help at all. Sometimes the stress of life puts a real, genuine damper on the production of words.

Most days I will tell people that I eat stress for breakfast then head out to take on the day. Most days.

Last week really pushed the needle on the stress meter. There was simply a ton of things that went pear shaped – not just for me, but for family and super close friends. Losses of jobs, medical diagnoses, calls from the consulate regarding a certain family members ability to get a visa, court dates, project deadlines, last minute school arrangements… It was an awful lot. I’d say I need a vacation, but that doesn’t help a whole lot these days either. The pandemic has made things so much more challenging across the board.

Long, deep, soulful sigh ~ insert here.

I’m back at the keys and clacking away. I’ve got a deadline tomorrow that I can’t miss for work and a deadline I can’t miss tomorrow for the kiddo. Work should be easy. Writing an essay about what I’ve learned as a parent as part of my daughter’s journey in martial arts? That’s going to be a challenge.

Breakfast of Champions?

I frequently joke that I eat stress for breakfast.

There is some truth to me living with what most people would call extremely stressful conditions on and off over the past 15 years or so. Well, lately ‘breakfast’ has not been agreeing with me. I have had a lot of stress over the past couple of weeks (a lot even for me) and it has impacted a lot of things. It’s taking a physical toll as well as killing my creativity and my ability to work on other projects.

The literally 7 things that broke or broke down around my house (needed to get a new dryer, you know, little things like that) are now in hand (so’s the door handle to the back door, but that’s going to be fixed soon too). The building project at my house is six weeks behind schedule, but my contractor has assured me they’ve got things worked out with the township regarding our building permit and that we’ll get back underway this week. Hopefully they’ll be able to work around the pool the weather has created for us.

Mud is getting deep…

I am slowly getting back on track, but I almost feel like I’ve got a hangover ~ without all the fun parts leading up to that. Creativity for me does require some amount of “mood” and inspiration. I think I’m going to have to work out a new story where stress becomes a literal monster… maybe I’ll be back on track sooner than I thought?