A Little Ball of Stress

That's what I am these days--well, not a ball of stress so much as an upright, walking, talking, human-looking container of stress, but I keep the expression I adopted in the days when stress continually forced me to curl up in a ball and try to hide in the nearest corner. I feel like banging my head against a wall when I go to church every Sunday, which is how I felt for several months last year when my mission papers took forever to go through and then I was told I couldn't serve a regular full-time mission because it would be too stressful for me and then I had no idea what to do with my life because I was certain the Lord had some work for me to do and I had really thought it was a mission. Yeah, I feel that way now. There is something I'm missing, something I'm supposed to be doing or leanring or some significant event is looming, but I can't quite see it through the clouds right now. And I want to bang my head against a wall to try and force the answer out of the depths of my mind, like maybe cracking my skull will release the pressure my thoughts are building up and then all the answers will be free to float lightly through the air where I can look up and see them. I feel like shaking myself and yelling, "Wake up and figure it out already!" But patience, patience. I actually did bang my head a little on the desk during the closing prayer in Sunday School. I also cried several time in church and afterwards today. The only meeting in which I did not cry was Sunday School, mainly because I was teaching it.

Two days ago, a good friend asked me to do something for her that I simply cannot do. I mean, I could do it, and it is tempting to do it because she wants me do it so badly to "solve" one of her problems, but I can't do it because I know it will solve nothing. In fact, it will perpetuate a gross lack of communication between her and another friend and aggravate the problem at hand. But she doesn't see the situation the way I do and insists that I can be the solution to her problem. I have done everything I can think to do for her, and now I am stressing myself out wondering if there is more, if I have missed something that will help her.

Then there are boys. I go through periods when I embrace modern society's gender role reversal during courtship. I happily (though not easily) ask out the boys that I like until, after a few months, I grow tired of it and wish I lived back when everyone knew that it was the man's responsibilty to pursue the woman and fewer people put off courtship and marriage the way they do now. Right now I am at that point where I am starting to get frustrated. I am currently interested in 3 guys. I don't know which one I like best because they are all quite different and I like and dislike different things about them. I suppose the solution to this is to go on dates with all of them so I can decide how much I really like them. I don't want to ask them out, though--I want them to ask me out. Sadly, I have never been successful in getting the guys I like to ask me out. Some girls are so good at that. But not me. Alas and alack and woe is me and pout, pout, pout.

Of course I am still enduring the adjustment to my job, and I have moments when I know I will get through it and love it and moments when I feel like I'm going crazy.

So while I cried in church today, I decided to ask for a blessing. I thought of several people I might ask, and couldn't decide on one. Then my home teachers, who never bother to talk to me outside of their short monthly visit and whose names I cannot always remember, decided to come over, and I thought, "Maybe I will ask them. It is, afterall, their responsibility to use their priesthood to meet my needs, and perhaps I need to give them this chance to be better than the sub par home teachers they have been thus far." I decided I would ask them if, during their visit, I felt like they were sincerely concerned for my well-being. I did not feel like they cared. They talked to me about the Red Sox, and, while I love the Red Sox, the conversation was not even close to meeting my needs and didn't show much effort on their part to determine my needs. Then, despite their failing my little show-me-your-sincerety test, I asked for a blessing anyway, and I'm glad I did. It is interesting to receive a blessing from someone who knows nothing about you because you know that what they say is pure inspiration, uninfluenced by their knowledge of your situation. And so I heard the words of the Lord, speaking directly to me through the voice of a young man I don't know, and it removes none of my stressors but helps me remember the gifts God has given me to help me deal with it all.

And as I have expelled many long and audible sighs, the kind that shake your whole body, while writing this, I realize I am worn out, and it is time to eat and sleep because these most primitive acts are the most comforting right now.

Current song: "For the Beauty of the Earth"