The past couple weeks have been super stressful. This is almost entirely centered around two things: 1) putting a lot of pressure on myself to get all my fundraising done NOW, and 2) wanting to be involved in everything all the time. This amounts to a lot of complaining about things that I legitimately enjoy doing. Plan a party for a retiring minister. Yes! Plan a massive yard sale that keeps growing with thoughtful donations? Of course! Work on designing and adding content to the church website? Ooo, cool! Five more concerned friends offering fundraising ideas? Great.
But all of this together? The fun starts feeling like pressure. And as an introvert who shuts down in the face of stress rather than acts out, things usually look like this:
- I’m going to take an extra five minutes at lunch to just…sit here.
- Maybe I’ll go to bed early tonight.
- And tonight.
- I don’t need ibuprofen for this headache, it’s fine.
- …Okay, maybe I’ll just take a couple.
- What if I just cancel my plans tonight?
- That felt awesome. Let’s cancel some more.
- THANK GOODNESS one thing is done! I’ll celebrate.
- By sleeping.
- Whoops, I just fell asleep at 8:30 p.m.
- And slept for 11 hours.
- Am I sick? Am I dying??
- No, I’m just, like, super mentally exhausted.
- Maybe some more ibuprofen, just to be safe.
- A new project? I’m going to politely say no.
- No. No. I cannot even think about doing that.
- Hi, sorry, bye, I can’t interact with people right now.
- I cannot actually use emotional inflection in my speech right now, so sorry.
- More sleep.
- More hiding alone in dark spaces.
- The transformation into Moria-Gollum is complete.
Haha, just kidding….sort of. Today is the yard sale that I’ve been planning for over a month. People have generously donated way too much stuff, and hopefully it’ll be sold, raising money toward my Greece fund and giving me less things to stress about. And maybe, just maybe, the rest of my responsibilities are also on the decline, and I can stop hoarding Alone Time like it’s precious.
It Is Trish 