I found this post I wrote in early May in my drafts when I thought it had disappeared forever. I remember writing it and being so mad that I lost it that I just gave up trying to write that day. But since I found it and and I kinda liked it, I decided to publish it today.
To say today was stressful is putting it mildly.
It wasn’t any one thing - ok, ONE thing played into the stress more than anything else - but it was more like a thousand little things that added up to me feeling acutely anxious for most of the day and not wanting to talk to anyone when I left work for the day.
The thing that stressed me out today is one thing I swore wasn’t going to let stress me out any longer. And that thing is politics. I promised myself I would not allow myself to plug into it, because it accomplishes nothing but giving me ulcers. I mean, how much control do I have over any of it, really? Zero control. So I’ve tried to leave all the Trump stuff and the Biden stuff alone and concentrate on the stuff I love rather than the stuff that makes me unhappy. I’ve never thrived on political debate and am even hesitant to talk about it here, even in this rather abstract way, lest I get the attention of people that I’d rather not get the attention of.
But I got to thinking about it today for some reason and I became so demoralized. I feel like we really are going to re-elect Trump despite everything. I hope to God I am wrong because so much about that terrifies me. Every single marginalized group in this country will suffer under him. As a member of one of those marginalized group (as are every member of my immediate family), I was just so sad for lack of a better word.
So I did what I always do when I’m stressed. I ate.
A coworker brought in a metric shit ton of treats that we are still making our way through and among those treats were my Kryptonite - Oreos. There’s a reason I don’t keep Oreos around the house and that is because I have no self control when they are present. I think “oh I’ll only eat two” and two becomes four becomes eight and then I’m like well I’ve already screwed up the diet, might as well do it up right and then it’s eleventy billion.
I’m not proud of what I did but I am so sleep deprived and that lowers my willpower substantially. It does not help that I fight the incessant drum beats of low self esteem for so many reasons, even though I’m fucking 52 years old and feel like I’ve done it my whole life. You would think I would have learned by now, but apparently not.
Who knows what will happen with the election? I most certainly do not. What I do know is that we’re in for a ride. The other thing I know is that I found a download of the Madonna concert from Rio, both video and audio and I’m feeling much calmer than I was earlier today. It’s so weird because I went to the show but I feel like it was a dream and the experience is so misty in my mind so this is a good way to remind myself of what a top notch experience.