stress

Stress is so stupid. Even the word is stupid. I hate stress. Actually, wait the word isn't stupid it's a totally accurate transfer of a word used for something tangible to something that is so incredibly not tangible.

Sometimes you can't win. I've been trying really hard to be positive. I think a lot of people feel that all they do is moan and whine about things that aren't perfect and I really don't want to be someone who, when they are 60, you can tell is a moany bitch just by looking at the downward lines from the corners of her mouth. Despite this it hasn't worked out. We are hoping to move house, that is our flat is for sale and it has not sold. It has been on the market for a week short of 2 months. I know it was overly optimistic to expect a bid immediately but we were quite hopeful it wouldn't be too bad. Perhaps it still isn't. Whatever, I'm so fed up of hearing about what's usual for the market now. I don't care. All I want to be is irrationally impatient and foot-stampy over not selling yet. Because not selling yet means our house is still sparse and unhomey, to try and attract offers with a lack of furniture. What a stupid idea. And it has to be clean. All. The. Goddamned. Time. And I'm fed up of cleaning it. I'm fed up of sweeping up stray pieces of cat litter and hoovering for hours on end and doing the washing up every single day yet never having a clean kitchen. I'm fed up of thinking "oh, I'd like to do that but there's no point until we move". And I'm fed up of noticing time ticking away while money goes down the drain on storage and my due date gets closer and closer. All in all I hate the whole situation.

This is funny because up until 3am last night if you'd asked about the house I'd have been the picture of positivity, telling you that everything is on track and, while we've not got bids yet we have had viewings, and most loudly that I'm not worrying about it! I'm just letting what happens happen! Because I'm that kind of person! And if it's for us it won't go by us! Fuck that. Anyone who actually knows me will know that I'm not laid back. I am a control freak. And a realist. And if you want something - like a house that's for sale - and you can't afford it, it's not because that house "wasn't meant to be" its because sometimes life sucks and things don't work out.

About a week ago I noticed that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep again. I was waking up and flopping about at night and THINKING about things. My dreams were awful collaborations of everything I'd done that day in freakish montages. Yesterday I developed a horrible itchy rash on my sides. By the middle of the night it spread to my legs and arms and at 3am I woke up. I tried to get back to sleep but I turned over and again as my heart race started increasing and my mind was fuzzy and too clear all at once. And I was having a panic attack, because I was fooling myself. So I made revelations finally about how I've felt for the last few weeks and realised I had been fooling myself with my cheerful exterior. Only it was no longer a facade and the contradiction in what I was telling myself I felt and what I felt on the outside was what produced so much stress (tangible) that I broke.

Today I went on the bus to Edinburgh. I booked Megabus but the bus was a Citylink coach; a minor alteration which I found hard to bear due to some internal fragility. I built up strength throughout the day. My mood throughout was stripped back, down trodden and generally dull. But at least it was truthful. It was a day where all I did was travel and work and think. At least I wasn't filling the time so I didn't have to think. On the way home I looked at all the gardens on rows of identical houses, deciding which I liked and what I would do if they were my gardens. I imagined owning fields and where I would build in it. It only occurs to me now that this is a continuation of a theme. A vent from below blew hot air up and a circle from above blew cool air down. It smelled of clean clothes. Then it smelt like toilets. My cheeks ached and my eyes burned. I thought about Stuart and felt like crying, but not in a desperate way, only because the reflex was recently tapped and still well exercised. I looked down into the windows of cars we passed, watched drivers and where they put their hands when idling down the motorway. I got home and felt like I was home which was bittersweet and I kept trekking. I've been working all day, even to this point. I'm going to have a bath and try to find relaxation now. Try and ease the incessant itch of the skin on my sides and hope that I don't awake with a jaw melded shut by my own force. I'll be fine tomorrow, I know that. The evening is just a reproduction of past evenings events with a melancholy spin. The best that can be done is to accept it and find some comfort. This all sounds so sad but it's not really, it's just life and sometimes you have to be withdrawn to heal the cracks in yourself which you one day realise you have unwittingly self-inflicted. At least it feels real again.