Worry tends to eat at you if you let it

I'm not sure it's a good sign that it's the middle of a Friday night and instead of sleeping, I'm mentally composing a tactful response to a work email string. I have also been scheduling at night in my dreams. I've never had so much trouble walking away from work and not worrying about things on my own time. I've always kept work, health, and personal life fairly balanced, and I'm having trouble now. I must find a way to bring it all into harmony again.

It's been almost a week since I've posted

I think this is the longest I've gone in years.  But now I'm hot and up in the middle of the night and not sleeping at all,  so it seemed a good time to check in.

Almost every aspect of my life is going well this week.  I found another job to apply for.  I helped a friend through a difficult week.  I was productive at work and managed to work extra to offset an appointment without using PTO. Brenda is back in the area and can give me a ride Thursday to my procedure. I'm a little nervous about having it,  but I'm relieved she'll be there.

But I look around the house and I can tell--stress has been insidious. I'm not to the tipping point yet,  but I'm close. And there's one main reason. I've been sad and worried about my mother,  and unable to get to her.  I have a message in to my  stepfather to see if there is a way he could come get me either day this weekend so I can see her for a few hours.  It's not looking good.  It may be my last chance. With the car like it is right now,  I could easily get stranded if I try to go on my own.  I don't have enough money to fix it or to rent a car. I looked into it,  as well as a transport service between Danville and Lexington. Thirty-five miles has never seemed so long a way. I feel like a failure. My mother and I are not close like we used to be,  and there is a lot of baggage from the past.  But I just want to see her and say goodbye. Hopefully I'll hear back from John tomorrow.

:(

It's amazing how a little lotion

In this case, Honey Almond mostuirising lotion I got in some gift basket years ago from my mom, can make you feel better. My hands are getting rough from using the walker, and my poor other foot is working double-duty, so I put some on and am giving it plenty of time to soak in, even though that took roughly a minute, they're so dry. I keep it near the computer for times my hands feel dry. Add the Burt's Bees lip balm from my purse, which was sitting right here, and I feel like I've positively been to a spa in comparison.

Okay, perhaps it's a little hyperbole, but I think the lack of showers for going on 22 days (although thank goodness for baby wipes) is the one day-to-day annoyance in all this that kind of keeps me down, so anything I can do to counteract it and feel normal really helps. When I'm better the first thing I'm going to do is take a good, hot shower. I know I've said that before, but still...

As I went back to bed, and thinking of the video, I remember thinking, everyone worries about the zombie apocalypse. No one ever worries about the unicorn apocalypse. Okay, silly, yes, but I went to tweet the thought and one of the guys I follow on Twitter @EilirJones (yes, we have the same name, and yes, he lives in Wales) tweeted something to the extent that worry is a waste of time. He said, name one worry you had two weeks ago that came true.

Well, two weeks ago I was in a place of worry. I was facing the possibility of dying, in fact, and that didn't come to place. I wrote back to Eilir with this:

I think worry is this weird subplot in a horror movie we play each day in our heads rather than living our lives to the fullest.

So, I won't say I won't worry about silly things occasionally, but at least I've been given the perspecitive to recognise the real worries from the maybes. And if nothing else, that's one good thing to come out of all of this.