Enter Reality, Stage Left...

Well then.
Two blogs In The Same Calendar Month, full of promise and resolve and perhaps a little bit of this:


la la la la laaaaaaa!

Yes. I was wearing yellow in those blogs, free of my high school friends agreeing that yes, yellow makes me look like a dead fish. And I can leap and dance and leave a trail of rainbow sparkles. Yup.

So then I hit post, and as if on cue, my old buddy Reality showed up.   He has lots of eyes and tons of grippy little arms and teeth. Oh yes, he does bite. Ahem.

My buddy, Reality.
He can do all the hand motions for YMCA at the SAME TIME, but that's about his only positive attribute.

Sometimes being positive and proactive is really, really challenging. I find that the challenge increases in direct proportion to me stating publicly that I’m going to be positive and proactive. I guess it’s like saying to the world “I AM GOING ON A DIET!” and then going to Costco at Free Sample Times when every sample is deep fried or sugary cream filled goodness. Or both. Alas.

I promise that this isn’t going to just become a weekly dose of existential crisis.  I just know when I read really positive proactive cheerful blogs I generally have a moment of whoa. That person has it so together. I JUST WANTED TO ELIMINATE ANY CONFUSION ABOUT THAT HERE. So. Not. Together. I figured I should acknowledge that post my blogging of light and energy and huzzah, Things Hit the Proverbial Fan. Those things were not smiling stars, those things that hit the fan. Although really, they’d stop smiling pretty fast if they whomped into the Vortex Windtunnel Fan-tasmic .

This week was way full of the Reality that tends to shut me down.

 

Trying to practice "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"...so this pic is blurry and rushed--and posted, not procrastinated. But this is how it looks. And yes, that is actually what I'm wearing right now. Sans actual green guys.

Work, home, medical yikes (scan week for my baby, who is WAY old enough and WAY observant enough to get that scans Don’t Always End Well--although thankfully, hers did end well), devastating medical  news for 3 friends of ours, heck, even a lot of rainy days…this week was way more Boo than booyah. Waaahaaaaay more boo.

So the question becomes What Do I Do when my ol’ friend Reality crashes with my attempts to change the reality of my responses?

I have to admit I did finally open my Cadbury balls and yes, there was at least one brief marathon of Hoarders watching. BUT I have also tried in those moments of intense anxiety or frustration to breathe. Just. Breathe. To try and focus. To try and NOT jump immediately to scary (harder than you might imagine. Ergh.)

Baby steps. It’s all about baby steps, even if those steps are sort of tangled up in my many armed friend (who never travels alone). 

How do you all deal with intense stress or chronic stress/frustration situations?  I have tried slightly reducing my caffeine again, I am still exercising (4.1 miles run today! Woo! Only possible because of midterms at school, but I’ll take it), I am trying to read cheerful books, I am trying to breathe and pray in those moments of Tripping the Ugh Ughtastic. But what do you all do? 

Reality is with us, too much sometimes. Some people carry Reality so gracefully, not like my zombie shuffle. What is their secret?

So the truth is out. The rainbows end somewhere. But really, I guess THAT is where the work begins.

And I still have more Cadbury left—voila! the stars are smiling again. ;)