Skip to main content

All I Really Want...er...Need

A "need" is not an option, it is something you must have to function fully. It is differentiated from a "want" in that a want is optional.

Someone may need to drill a hole in my head and attempt to stuff this concept inside.

I got back a little while ago after spending 3 1/2 hours at the emergency room. Almost 3 weeks ago, I found myself getting incredibly exhausted during the day. It was so bad at one point that I actually almost fell asleep on a roller coaster. I'm not kidding. I chalked it up to the end of the school year chaos and thought it would be gone by now. Instead, in the last week, I've been sleeping close t0 16 hours a day and walking in a fog very much like the aura you get before a migraine.

The urgent care doctor sent me immediately to the ER for stroke and MS tests. (For the record, one of these is one of my greatest fears.) I had a slew of blood tests, x-rays, and a cat scan done...all to the amusement of the triage nurse. After all of this, the doctor told me, "Well, I have good news...everything seems okay." And then he asks about depression. My regular doctor usually asks about anxiety. My bet is on stress.

So I took a little online stress test and scored 483. Perhaps the extra hours at work, Alan's surgery, our finances, the possible move, family and marital problems, and even my poison ivy have all caught up with me. I read the quote above in an article on reducing stress, and now I'm trying to figure out what exactly I *need*, how to ask for it, and what to do if I don't get it. After all, how exactly do you go about getting a need met when it involves another person who may or may not cooperate. A dios mios!

I'm not a terribly complicated person. My needs are relatively simple. At least, I think so. I'm not even sure *what* I need. Oh dear...the more I think about it, the scarier it is. I'm not even sure I can admit it. Here I was all prepared to list my needs, but I think I need to figure out how to articulate them.

There's my little update for today...and my stalling. I must DE-STRESS!

Comments

Christy said…
You know where to find me if you need me!
frabjouspoet said…
Thanks. I really needed to hear that.

Popular posts from this blog

The Carnival

It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon here in southwest Florida, although still a bit too warm for my November tastes. I'm learning to enjoy my weekends with as much unstructured and unscheduled time as possible. Last Saturday was a delightful unstructured day. A new friend of mine (the one from the Everglades excursion) and I went to a local carnival. Now, here's the thing...I LOVE carnivals. The food. The people. The rides. The lights. I can easily spend an entire day wandering through the crowds. He's no carnival slouch. The first thing we did was walk through the entire place, scoping out the rides. Then the fun began. We rode almost every ride there (except for the kiddie attractions and the broken Tornado). The Wild Claw. The Scrambler. The Orbiter. The Space Oddysey. The Swings. The Pharaoh's Fury. The Ferris Wheel. The Giant Slide. The Haunted House. The Avalanche. It was all good. How can you top a ride that uses centrifugal force to plaster your body against...

Busy Days Ahead

It's been a busy week for me. I left my house at 4:30 Monday morning for my drive down south and pulled back in my driveway at 1:20 this morning. The days have been long, too, between working at the new school from 7:30 until 3:00 or 4:00 and then working at the new place until 9:00 or 10:00 each night. I now have callouses on my fingers and not one intact finger nail. I think I've also developed a new twitch somewhere on my face. One afternoon this week, I stood in the middle of our new living room and took in the sight of missing drywall, a growing hole in the floor and soaked up my husband's predictions that we still won't be ready to paint by the weekend. All I wanted to do was cry. All I felt was nothingness. Numbness. Anyone who has ever reached the point of numbness knows that it's scarier than feeling like you're falling apart. It's one step beyond feeling like you're falling apart. I couldn't help but wonder just what we had gotten ourselves...

Stranger Obligations

I had to make a few difficult decisions this week. At least, they were difficult for me. I wish I could be the kind of person who completely makes decisions based on his/her own needs and wants and boldly moves through life with unabashed freedom from how our choices affect others. But I'm not built like that. I had placed an ad for my former stray. I felt like it was time to find her a more permanent home because so much in my life right now is uncertain. One person answered the ad, but she did not seem like a good fit, and I gave up further thought. This week I received another response. As long as this person is telling the truth, it's an ideal situation for the dog. Yet, I had a strange feeling and could not sort out whether or not it was my intuition kicking in or that fact that I actually like the dog and don't want to see her go. In the end, I decided that it was in my own (and my Winnipeg's) best interest for her to stay with us through the summer. (I seri...