January 8, 2010

Sitting in another doctor's office feeling too cold to move let alone write, but if I just sit here waiting to get warm (an unlikely event) I'm going to really lose my marbles.

I get anxiety attacks on a regular basis, such as right now. If I had my druthers I'd be curled up in a ball in the corner rocking back and forth.  Thoughts are rushing through my head too fast to catch.  Did I turn off the curling iron?  Did I wear the right clothes?  My shirt is all wrong, why did I wear it?  My poofy Alaska parka is making my hair go wild with static.  Why wasn't I up at seven or six or some other hour dragging my daughter out of bed to be on time to school?

Holding on to all the criticism isn't something I can afford.  Instead I do my best to refute the worst arguments with logic - like who cares what shirt I'm wearing?  I'm the boss!  Or your daughter is almost seventeen, if she can't learn to get a grip on things now, what kind of disaster will follow?  Sometimes you need to step back as a parent to teach your kids about independence!

Right now the arguments are barely keeping me calm enough to sit still and avoid any inviting corners.  None are available at the moment.  In the mean time I've brilliantly employed this distraction tool of writing in this journal.  It's helping.  To be honest it would help a lot more if I could focus on something totally unrelated to me, but if I am going to do this blog thing, I may as well take the opportunity to lay out for others some of my daily struggles.

It's funny, but I feel completely trapped if I've got to be at a certain place at a certain time.  Like working an 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. job kills me.  I'll push myself through maybe three days before I turn into completely useless mental mush.  It infuriates me because I know I'm bright, capable, intelligent, good at what I do, and so on... I just can't take the stress.  So, I find compromises.

I've started my own businesses run out of my home a number of times.  It's a situation where I can be in control of the schedule, not trapped by it.  Right now I'm my husband's office manager.  We have an agreement of sorts.  I come and go as needed, take off when it is too much for me to take, or my kids need me, and we have a cleaning service for the house. (Huge incentive that cleaning service since I love a clean house, but get way too obsessive when I try to start cleaning.  It never ends!)

In exchange, he has the peace of mind knowing private things stay private, like payroll, and finances.  He can relax a little and not feel like he's got to micro-manage everything.  You see, my husband, much to my surprise soon after we were married, turned out to be an anal perfectionist just like me (a dangerous combination in a countless number of ways). Although I must say perfectionisim is unquestionably a quality you're going to want in a doctor, especially a suregon such as my husband.  He is unquestionably an exceptionally good man.  Only a man of high caliber would have stayed with someone so burdensome as me for all of these years.  He loves me, and I love him.