I dare you...score yourself and compare.
http://www.stress.org/holmes-rahe-stress-inventory/
My score was 545, and that was with me trying to eliminate as many duplicates as made sense.
That said, I have been grieving, changing, and finding myself as much as I humanly can. My two-year plan has been quite successful; I just was not expecting all of the shedding of baggage, tears, and crap that was going to come with it. I have a self-sustaining real-estate investment company, new home paid for in cash, new gig blogging for loveknitting.com, and VERY new gig selling yarn to yarn shops for one of my favorite companies.
Win, win, win, win, and win!
However, I realized that I was not finished...or in some cases, had not started...grieving some events in my recent past. There was CJ, of course...it is difficult to grieve a lost spouse when you marry his best friend, and the two of you have incompatible grieving processes.
Then...and this one took me by surprise. It was a year ago this past weekend that triggered the worst period of depression in my memory. I had to remind myself to get out of bed...it was that awful. So, as I was walking to Starbucks, I started to cry. You know those big, cleansing tears where there is no accompanying weep? Yeah...those.
So I stopped at the church across the street from the starbucks, and they have a good-deed box. I wrote the following note, as close as verbatim from memory (except with some parts deleted, due to a ridiculous confidentiality clause I signed):
One year ago this weekend, one of my dogs attacked the dog of my dog-sitter and dear friend, Renee. The dog had been socialized with both children and other dogs, but she was in an unfamiliar environment, and neither of us saw a problem initially since I had never seen her aggressive like that, and Renee had obviously cared for many animals. When she took her dog to the emergency vet, she left my dogs in her yard, accidentally leaving the gate open. By the time I arrived, I found out from Animal Control that Penny (my one dog) had attacked and killed a second dog. Lily, Renee's dog, died that night as well. The other person involved was so angry that first he blamed Renee, then me, then he did not know who to blame beyond that. Renee forgave me instantly; in fact, she did not see anything to forgive since it was just a horrible accident. I was going through a nasty time, and my remaining two animals ended up moving to Texas because of questions regarding my fitness as a pet owner and me just finally being too tired to argue. I know as well that it was a horrible accident, but I still had to put Penny down; it was the only right decision, and it was absolutely horrible. I hope you can please pray for the following:
Pray for Renee and her family, who continue to be models of His grace and of forgiveness, despite suffering their loss.
Pray for the family of the other dog, who just wanted money from me in their anger, and for hoping they get past it and are able to move forward.
Pray for Penny, Lily, and the third dog who are hopefully running together in Heaven and all is forgiven.
Pray for the other person involved, who will hopefully see one day that blame and anger is just preventing him from loving himself and others.
Pray for Bluto and Axl, who I hope are as loved in Texas as they were loved by me.
Pray for me, who knows it was nobody's fault but who still hurts from it, and wishes the best possible for everyone involved.
Writing this down in the back pew of the Baptist church at Irving and Kostner with tears constantly streaming down my face made me feel like Penny finally had a voice. Completely stupid, I know. But I firmly believe that sweet dog had no idea she did anything wrong, and the guilt I carried was certainly enough for both of us.
So in related news, sometimes, I am asked why I knit so much. My silly answer is "So I don't smoke." I have no desire to smoke; I'm a singer. Doing both is not a possibility, and I will always choose health over death, and singing over silence.
So I knit. Knitting prevents me from engaging in destructive habits like smoking, overeating (although sometimes I think the entire chocolate cake is a serving size...sue me), doing hard drugs, biting my nails, or even mindlessly scratching some benign thing, like a kitchen table.
I do not just love to knit. I need to knit. Reviewing yarns for LoveKnitting.com means I get to knit a simple, one-ball piece every singe week of my life. I will always have something to break away from my stress level. And now I get to sell Cascade Yarns to yarn shops, which is an excellent choice for every yarn shop in America (as far as I'm concerned, anyway), so my creative juices are flowing nonstop. If the creative juices flow, then the pipe does not have much room for holding onto guilt and shame and despair and disappointment and...
My goal for the next two years, however, is to get that stress score down just a bit.
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