Hello friends…. Welcome to what is not a helpful tutorial on how to handle stress effectively and gracefully…. Welcome to what is my ever so comical experience of recently moving into a new house with 3 dogs, a brand new fiancĂ©, and a 10yo wonderfully beautiful and rambunctious child while also working 2 jobs and trying to maintain some semblance of sanity…. How did I do it you may ask? Ha, not sure but I’m still alive and that must account for something, not only that my fiancĂ© still wants to marry me, my kid says he likes his new room, the excitement seems to still ooze from his pores and the dogs don’t appear to totally hate me so I’m going to count that up as a win.
I have no idea where I heard this and where exactly moving falls on the list but “they” say moving falls into one of the top something stressors a person goes through in life…. I didn’t think much of it as I’ve moved many a times in the past and although none were without hiccups I had always moved myself and without much other added stressors. This time was different….life is different, but I suppose that’s how it goes…. To add to the comedy and give you a continued good laugh I suppose I could share we are now almost a week in to being in this new house and as of yet we’re still living out of boxes of which we’re sure some of our house elves have permanently misplaced things, waiting on our fridge, washer and dryer and the fence that was supposed to be completed the day we moved in is still not done so the 3 very active and spritely dogs that are used to having a fenced in backyard appear to be questioning their lives and my support for them. Walking all of them at once has been nothing short of an America’s Funniest Home Videos front runner.
All of this being said and even though I still do not feel settled I guess I am grateful. I have been given the privilege to live in a house with a partner, kid and pets and when reminiscing on past struggles where at one point drug addiction ruled my life and homelessness was right around the corner, I am grateful. I still have some sorry’s to deliver because of my near psychosis level lack of sleep and the overwhelming snippyness that has been exuding from my pores out of pure exhaustion, frustration, anger and abundant lack of control that I like to maintain at all points in time, but we’ve made it and you know what.. that counts.
For whoever is reading this we’ve all made it… some more easily than others and I know there will be plenty cussing me out right now thinking “what do you mean we’ve made it” life sucks. That may certainly be true and yet here you are, here we are some surviving, some thriving, some somewhere in between but we’re here, with each other and I’m going to count that as a win. I know a lot of my current and recent stressors will subside, for others it may be hard to see the light…and when we do see it just hoping it’s not an oncoming train. If that’s you… here’s my shameless therapisty plug,… reach out, ask for help, do something kind to you and for you. You’ve got this and you’re making it. Keep doing you… let’s all “move” through this stress together. The End (not really… but for now…nap time).