Tag Archives: stress

Stress Is Hitting Me Hard (or A Lot Of Things Are Coming At Once)

Posted on November 9, 2022 | Comments Off on Stress Is Hitting Me Hard (or A Lot Of Things Are Coming At Once)

I know that stress will always be a part of my life. I will never be stress-free, but I have gotten used to a certain level of stress as my baseline. And while I do struggle sometimes with that baseline stress level, it’s usually pretty manageable with different tricks and tools that I use. But this week, a lot of stress is hitting me at the same time and it’s really starting to affect me.

The first thing related to stress isn’t one that I can control. We are having some weather that causes me extra pain. This isn’t anything new for me, but it’s always frustrating when it happens. I can manage this with painkillers and other over-the-counter things, and as you are reading this I have already had an appointment with a new orthopedic surgeon so I might have some new information about how my hips are doing. I’m always open to trying different things to make this pain easier to deal with. But it’s also something that just adds to my life that I have to work through.

I’m also stressed about getting on a flight very soon. I haven’t been on a plane in quite some time. I already don’t like to fly and I know that it can cause me anxiety or bring on panic attacks. And flying now, even though the pandemic isn’t as bad as it was before, is still a higher-risk thing to do. I know that masks aren’t required on planes anymore, but I will be wearing a high-quality mask myself to make sure that I am staying as safe as I could. I know that plenty of people have gone on planes, both with and without a mask, and have been fine and didn’t get sick. But with all the precautions I’ve been taking for so long, this is just one more thing that is adding a bit of worry to my week. And because I’ve got my regular anxiety as well, it’s more than I’m used to dealing with for flying.

Traveling is a bit exciting since I haven’t really gone anywhere since 2019 other than places that are within about a 90-minute drive. But it’s also something else that is taking up time that I have to get ready for. I need to pack and see what I still need to get, especially since I don’t have many travel-sized toiletries. I don’t think doing that is too stressful, but it’s still time in my day when I don’t have a lot of free time to begin with. I’m trying to focus more on being excited for my brief escape from LA so it’s more positive stress than negative stress.

And because of all this extra stress this week, I’m dealing with a very minor cold. I have done a few Covid tests already to make sure it’s not Covid, and it might actually be dealing with allergies and not a cold. I don’t necessarily feel sick, just a bit congested and I’m sneezing a bit more than normal. No matter what the reason why I’m feeling this way, I know that having extra stress causes your immune system to be a bit weaker than normal so it’s easier to catch something. I’m going to test again for Covid before I have to fly to double check, but since I’ve already tested negative a few times and I don’t have too many symptoms, I feel pretty certain that it’s something else right now.

I know that usually when I have stressful things happening they do tend to pile up. And that’s exactly what’s going on right now. But all of these new stresses are very temporary and hopefully, within a week or two, I’ll be back to my normal baseline stress levels.

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Default ThumbnailTrusting It Will Be Ok (or Dealing With Stress In A Healthy Way) Default ThumbnailTrying To Not Let My Stress Get To Me (or Continuing To Find Ways To Cope With Isolation) Default ThumbnailShowing My Stress (or Hoping Things Will Get Better Now) Default ThumbnailI Underestimated The Stress Of Moving (or I Know This Is Temporary) Default ThumbnailA Bit Over-Scheduled (or Starting To Stress Out) Default ThumbnailShort Weeks Feel Extra Stressful (or I’m Almost Through This Week)

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Some Positives About My Move (or Not Just Focusing On The Stress)

Posted on April 28, 2022 | Comments Off on Some Positives About My Move (or Not Just Focusing On The Stress)

I feel like for the most part since I started to move my things to the condo I have really only written about the negative things such as the stress. And I’m not going to deny that the past few weeks have been extremely stressful and that a lot of it is my fault. I did a pretty bad job with planning my move and I underestimated how poorly I was organizing things. Maybe I won’t move again for a long time, but I hope I learned my lessons and I won’t make the same mistakes. I think feeling like I could move a majority of the stuff on my own was a very optimistic idea that was poorly executed because of my schedule.

And yes, the stress and other negative things really sucked. But I wanted to do a post that focuses on the things I’m so happy about now that I’m almost moved into my new place.

First, the obvious one is that I have a much bigger place that has so many upgrades compared to my last place. I used to live in a house that was 400 square feet and over 100 years old. I didn’t have a lot of space and I didn’t have a lot of things that most people probably feel are almost standard things to have these days. I didn’t have a dishwasher. My water heater was pretty small and had issues maintaining the temperature I set it to. The insulation in the house was non-existent and I had extreme temperatures year-round inside.

And now, I have all new appliances. I have a dishwasher and my own washer and dryer (doing laundry on a random weekday felt like such a luxury since the ones I shared at my old place were not cheap to use). While I do have central a/c and heat now, I haven’t turned on the thermostat because the temperature inside has been pretty consistent no matter what it is like outside. I also have better lighting inside my new place and I feel like I’m not always having to turn on every light in order to do things.

And the space I have is a huge benefit too! It is weird to see my furniture look ridiculously tiny in the new place, but I will be getting some new pieces to help fill out the space a bit. My kitchen isn’t big, but I have probably triple the counters I used to have (maybe more than triple). We got rid of some cabinets in the renovation, but there are still so many more cabinets than I had before. I can’t reach the top shelves without a little step stool, but I haven’t had to use the higher shelves yet because I barely have filled the lower ones.

I also love having office space. Right now, things are a bit unorganized because I will be buying some new furniture for this room so things might stay in boxes for a little while longer. But I have my desk pretty much set up and I love having a separate space to work from so I don’t feel like I’m always in my workspace all day long. And in my old setup, my desk faced a wall in my living room so I didn’t have a nice view. I just saw a calendar on the wall behind my computer when I looked up. But now, I have a view of the courtyard from my desk.

I do see everyone as they come and go because I have a view of the main gate, so that’s a bit distracting at times. But it’s also fun since I haven’t had a chance to meet all my new neighbors yet.

And my new neighbors are another positive. At my old place, there were only 8 units and we all knew each other pretty well. We helped each other out and looked out for everyone if things seemed off. Everyone at my old place knew I was moving and they all were offering to help me however they could. I know having a situation like that is very unusual and I never lived somewhere where I was close to all my neighbors. But in the new place, everyone I’ve met has been just as amazing. The neighbors on either side of my place have been so kind, especially since the renovation wasn’t quiet and they had to deal with the noise. And when I’ve needed help with anything, they have offered it without hesitation. And everyone else I’ve met so far has been so welcoming and really seemed like they wanted to get to know me, not just meeting me to be polite. This isn’t that big of a building (it’s under 40 units), but it’s bigger than my last place and I know it will take time to meet everyone. But I’m glad that the people I’ve met so far have all been really great.

And I think the biggest positive about my move and the new place is that this is my place. I’m not renting and have to worry about what my landlord might do. Ever since I knew my last place was being sold, I was worried about us getting eviction notices. I also couldn’t do all the things I wanted to do to the place since it wasn’t mine. I had to ask permission for things like having my a/c unit in the window or wanting to remove a screen from a window. But now, while I can’t really change the outside walls since it is a shared building, I have the freedom to do what I want to this place. The renovation already has turned it into the perfect place for me. And I have more plans for how I’m going to make this place really mine and I can’t wait to see how it looks when I have everything figured out.

The stress of this move has been brutal and I really didn’t think it would be this bad. But I know it’s worth it. I’m so happy with my new home and what I have already created in this place. And this is just the beginning and I know so many good things will be coming my way.

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Random Days Of Sickness (or I Don’t Know What Caused This)

Posted on April 27, 2022 | Comments Off on Random Days Of Sickness (or I Don’t Know What Caused This)

I’ve clearly been going through a lot of stress lately, and I know stress can do crazy things to your body. I haven’t been sleeping well, my eating habits are all over the place, and I’m just having anxiety all the time. And that’s outside of the physical issues I’m having connected to moving such as the pain from lifting so much.

And I knew there was a risk of all this stress getting me sick, but you can’t really predict how and when it might happen. But I got pretty sick yesterday and I have no idea if it’s connected to stress or if I got something like food poisoning. Being sick is never fun, but it’s worse when you have so much you have to do and you aren’t really in a place where you know where everything is.

I spent the night before just feeling rotten. This was different from how I feel each month and I just couldn’t get comfortable in bed. I’m glad I wasn’t scheduled for a workout that day so I could have a bit of a lazy morning. And I tried to just be gentle with myself during the day. I had to work and move stuff from my old place, but I was taking my time with things. I also moved around my place while working to be as comfortable as possible. I’m not really set up to work from my couch right now, but I tried to work there so I could stretch out. I also spent some time working from my bed. I know I’m lucky that I’m able to do this since I work from home. If I was someone who had to go into an office I would have had to call in sick.

I’m hoping that this bug or stress sickness will be done now. By the end of the day, I was still feeling a bit off, but significantly better than how I was in the morning. I know that when I get bugs like this it can take a few days to feel fully better. I usually have a few days of uneasiness or being off-balanced.

I know this is a shorter post than what I normally do, but I’m still trying to feel better and I have a lot I need to get done today. I know I’ve said this so many times, but I just can’t wait until the move is done so I can get this stress out of my life. I’m almost there, but I still have a few things I need to do so I can officially say I’m no longer in the process of moving.

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Another Unexpected Part Of Moving (or I Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Plan Better For This)

Posted on April 22, 2022 | Comments Off on Another Unexpected Part Of Moving (or I Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Plan Better For This)

As I’ve written several times now, I’m finding a lot of things about moving that aren’t the way I thought they would be or how I remembered them from before. And I know a lot of these things are also related to how I’m doing my move. I’ve been taking my time and slowly getting things from one place to another. I have done a majority of the move within the last week, but it’s still been over multiple days instead of doing everything at once. And maybe this wasn’t the right way to do things even though I thought it would be easier because I keep finding random things that I wasn’t exactly prepared for. And this one is one I found out after I started mainly living at the condo this week.

At my old place, over the last few weeks, I tried to be pretty careful with what I got from the grocery store. I didn’t want to have a lot of food I needed to move over with me, especially if they were frozen items or things that were going to be opened and potentially make a mess. So the last few weeks I have been very conscious about what food I already have and was trying to make more meals from that instead of going out and getting more stuff. I still have some food at the old place I need to move over this weekend, but I got things down to only a handful of things left.

And when I moved my furniture on Sunday to the condo, I wasn’t sure at the time if I would sleep at the condo or at the old house. So I wasn’t really prepared with food at the condo. But I figured that would be easy enough to deal with so I got some takeout food for dinner that night. But because I hadn’t planned, I also didn’t have food for Monday and I wouldn’t be able to get to the store until after work. So I had to order some delivery food (I got a bowl from Chipotle) for lunch that day until I could go get a few groceries to get me through the week.

I didn’t get anything too crazy since I knew this week would be hectic and I would want things that would be easy and fast to have. So most of what I got was prepared items, things I could microwave, or shelf-stable items. Not necessarily the healthiest or best options, but I knew this would just be for now and not the way I would continue to eat.

And for the most part, this plan has worked ok for me. I’m having some weird food issues right now and I’m struggling to eat at times, but I do go through those phases occasionally and I think this is also just the stress manifesting itself in my body. But the issue I’m running into now is that my kitchen really isn’t set up for making food if I wanted to right now.

So much of my stuff is still in boxes. I know that I need to work on unpacking more, but I also wanted to plan out a bit where I would want to put things. But I might have to wait on that and just get things unpacked for now and work on the organization later. But also, not everything is here yet. I didn’t think too much about which boxes I was moving on which day since I knew I would eventually get everything over here. But until yesterday, I had no pots and pans. I was missing bowls until Wednesday but had plates. I didn’t think to bring stuff from my spice rack until later in the week. Honestly, I have no clue what parts of my kitchen are still in the old place and what is in boxes here at this point. I really need to work on getting stuff put away or at least where I can figure out what I have so I can start planning normal meals and not just what is easy to grab.

Just like everything else stressing me out with this move, I know this is temporary and I will have all my kitchen things soon and I can start cooking in my new and amazing kitchen! And I’m excited to cook in this kitchen since everything is new and will work properly. Plus, I have so much more space to prep so I won’t feel as cramped as I try to make things that involve more ingredients or steps.

And if I’m having some not-so-great food days for right now, I know it’s going to be ok. I need to allow myself to be a bit off from what I know I should be doing while I’m in the process of settling in. This doesn’t mean I’m going to go crazy, but I’m also not going to stress myself out more if I end up having another day where I need delivery food for lunch because I still don’t have my kitchen together.

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I Underestimated The Stress Of Moving (or I Know This Is Temporary)

Posted on April 21, 2022 | Comments Off on I Underestimated The Stress Of Moving (or I Know This Is Temporary)

I have some friends who have moved several times in the past few years. Some people have moved almost once a year and some have moved maybe twice in 5 years. For the friends who have moved somewhat regularly, it seems like they have a pretty decent packing and moving plan in place. Maybe it’s because, for many of them, they were moving a far distance so they had to do it all at once (like moving across the country where you really can’t go back and forth). Or maybe they did more research on how to be smart when moving or they are just more organized. I’m not sure why it seems like some of my friends are pros and moving and I’m learning that I am far from a pro.

I know that it’s been 12 years since I’ve moved so I also haven’t had to do this in a long time. And when you’ve lived somewhere for so long, you get a lot of things and you have everything in a particular place. So having to adjust where things are or decide what to take can be very overwhelming. And as I’ve written about quite a few times on here, moving has been so stressful for me and I don’t think I was really prepared for it.

I think that each stage of moving has had its own type of stress and it’s been building upon each stage. At first, when I was just going through my things and deciding what to get rid of, that was stress I’ve gone through more recently and it was a bit more manageable. Coordinating movers and everything that comes along with moving was something I had done before, but not for such a long time so I really didn’t have a plan in place for that. I just reached out to multiple places that were recommended either by friends or online review sites and compared what each offered. I ended up going with one of the cheaper ones because I knew I wouldn’t have a lot for the movers to take.

I think almost all the moving companies I looked at had a 3-hour minimum, and I knew that I wouldn’t need all that time. When the movers were at my old place over the weekend, they even kept asking me if I had more that they could take for me. I started giving them random things that were easy to add to the boxes they were using. But I was pretty unprepared for being able to give them more boxes. I’ve been using banker boxes for the move and I usually fill them to the point where you can’t put the lid on them. And if they couldn’t be closed, the movers couldn’t take them for me. Of the 3-hour minimum, I barely used 2 hours to move the big pieces of furniture and other things I could give to them.

And now, I’m in the phase where it feels like there is a time crunch to get everything out of the old place and into the condo. I know I have about a week and a half left and a lot of things are being picked up by friends or charities so it won’t seem as bad soon, but it feels like I have so much left to move out of there. I’ve been trying to move stuff every day, but it doesn’t seem like I have made that big of a dent yet. But I know that’s probably my mind playing a trick on me.

I know that as soon as this month is done, the moving stress will have to end. The unpacking and organizing of the new place will probably still be happening and causing me stress, but at least everything will be in one location at that point. And because I have reorganized my old place several times, maybe that will be stress that I’m able to handle a bit better.

I’m trying to manage the stress of moving in the best (and hopefully healthiest) ways that I can. And the biggest thing that I think is helping me is having a very regular routine. I still have to work every day (which is also stressful since I wish I could be working on the move during the day but I can’t). And I go to my workouts in the morning. I also still have the regular evening things that I do throughout the week, although just like work, that is making me stress a bit since I know I could use that time for moving stuff. As much as I’m trying to manage how I’m feeling, I also can feel the effect that the stress is having on my body. It’s tough to not get stressed about that too, but I know there is no point in worrying about how this is affecting me.

I can’t imagine how I would be doing with this all if I didn’t have my regular routines keeping me grounded. Right now, that’s my sanity even though it does cause me a bit more stress because my time is being used for other things. But I can’t wait until this time is done so I can be past the stress of moving and can get back to the regular stress that I’m used to in my day to day life.

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Short Weeks Feel Extra Stressful (or I’m Almost Through This Week)

Posted on February 25, 2022 | Comments Off on Short Weeks Feel Extra Stressful (or I’m Almost Through This Week)

Until last year, having holidays on Mondays didn’t change much about my schedule since I always had Mondays off. Now, at least I do get an extra day off on weeks that have holidays on Mondays but it seems to make the rest of my week a bit more stressful than normal. It might just be the timing of the few times I’ve had a Monday holiday off, but it really feels like each one that I had makes my week hard.

This time, some of the extra stress was due to work-related things. I’ve been working on a new project at my job and it’s been taking longer than I had hoped. I still have a week before I need to be done with it, but I was hoping I would finish early so I could check everything before it was due. I probably don’t need to check anything, but I like having that time buffer to make sure I didn’t miss anything or need to correct my work. Also, with how my customer service job goes, this week is typically one of the busier weeks of the month so that is adding to my stress.

And I’m dealing with stress with my living situation as well. Nothing is horrible and I know I’m lucky because I’ll be moving soon enough. But my current landlord is still making things stressful for us and being a bit uncommunicative about what is happening. I wish we knew when there would be workers here all day in advance so I didn’t have anxiety when I see a ton of people outside my window. Or earlier this week, I wish I had known they would be doing work on the outside of my unit so I could have been prepared for the noise. I also was still waiting to have heat in my house until just yesterday. That was almost a month of no heat, and it’s been pretty cold lately. Waking up and having it be below 50 degrees in your room isn’t a comfortable thing.

But the biggest thing that I think is making my home extra stressful has been the fact that it doesn’t feel like my home right now. I have been preparing to move for a while, but most of that has been stuff I don’t see. Now, a lot of my stuff has been taken off the walls. There are white splotches where we have spackled over holes. Things feel messy and out of place. I know some of this discomfort is connected to my OCD. I want to fix things, but I can’t. And it’s tough when I keep focusing on what feels wrong to me. I think this is bothering me more than it normally would because of all the extra stress in my life right now.

And of course, the state of the world is so stressful. I don’t know what to write because it’s just so overwhelming. We have gone through so many life-changing or once-in-a-lifetime events lately. I wish things would be back to the way they used to be, but I also know things will never really be back to the before times. But hopefully, the new normal will resemble more of the old normal soon.

I know that having a regular work week next week won’t necessarily make all my stress go away, but I’m hoping that since a few things have started to get better I will have a better week. And maybe I won’t feel the same time crunch that I did this week when I felt like I didn’t have enough time to get things done. And maybe if a few things are better, the other things won’t be as tough for me to get through.

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Really Trying To Stay Calm (or Things Just Piled Up This Week)

Posted on October 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Really Trying To Stay Calm (or Things Just Piled Up This Week)

This week has been a really rough week for me. I was prepared for feeling awful this week, but I wasn’t really prepared for much more than that. But it seems like this week, everything just decided to make life more stressful.

Not counting having Instagram being down while I was trying to work, this week has been exceptionally stressful at work. There is someone new being trained, so things won’t be dependent on me as much. But right now, I’m working full time and I’m pretty much the only one covering the work that 2 of us used to cover. And there have been a few extra things that needed to be done this week that aren’t normal tasks. So I had to cover my usual work plus the extra stuff. And since this wasn’t a part of my normal work, I didn’t have a great way to be efficient. I needed to pull data from different places, and I’m sure there was a way to do it faster than I did. But I didn’t want to waste time trying to figure that out. So I just did it the way that made sense.

And feeling bad this week was expected, but it’s also always really rough on me. I never know how I will feel or how I will react to my medications. This time they are working better than most times, but I still just have this general feeling of uneasiness and sickness. I’m glad I don’t feel really horrible and spend a lot of time in pain, but it’s weird to feel just bad enough that I don’t want to do a lot of things but not so bad that I feel like I need to relax. It’s a weird middle ground. I also am dealing with a lot of hip pain this week (I think it’s due to the weather), and that just makes it even harder on me. I’ve been trying to be gentle with myself and not feel like I should do more just because I’m not feeling as bad as I expected, but I still keep putting pressure on myself that I should be getting things done.

And going along with the idea that I should be doing more and getting stuff done, I am stress about the idea of moving soon. I have lived in my house for so long and I have a lot of stuff I’ve collected. I have stuff stored in my garage that I don’t use and either need to sell, give it away, or throw it out. I’m slowly working through things and seeing what I need to have a plan to do. And of course, it’s never as simple as it sounds. For example, I can’t get into my garage as the door broke. I know my landlord will come to fix it, but when I had set aside time to work on it I wish I could have done what I planned.

All of these things are manageable and I know they aren’t things I need to add extra stress about. But it seems like the more stressful things in my life, the more stress each thing has. And this week, my stress management is really being tested with having so much happening. But maybe this means that soon I’ll have a nice break from stress in my life.

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I Got To Practice My Monthly Challenge Early This Month (or Still Working On Not Worrying About Job Things)

Posted on September 3, 2021 | Comments Off on I Got To Practice My Monthly Challenge Early This Month (or Still Working On Not Worrying About Job Things)

When I set my monthly challenge this month to be about not thinking too much in the future about things that may go wrong or right in my life, I assumed a lot of what I would be using that for would be related to things I already know are going on. I didn’t want to stress about moving. I didn’t want to worry more about the pandemic. I didn’t want to overthink dating. But because my life is like this, I had an unexpected curveball right at the start of the month!

Things at my customer service job have been crazy lately, but most of the crazy has been good. I’ve been working more hours, taking on more responsibilities, and helping with projects that will help the company continue to grow. But whenever things change in a job, mistakes can be made too. And while I haven’t made any really bad mistakes, there have been things that weren’t communicated as clearly as they could have or procedures that are in the process of being changed and it’s unclear what is supposed to be done now.

So on Wednesday, my manager asked me if I could have a Zoom call with her the next day (which was yesterday). There weren’t any specifics on why we were having the call, so my brain went to all the horrible things it could be. Because of my work history, I am always terrified that I’m about to be fired. I know that’s now what would be happening this time (right after this meeting was set up I was invited to 2 other meetings that are for my entire department). But I couldn’t stop thinking about all the negatives that it could be. I hate that that’s how I think and that’s exactly why I set my challenge to be this for September.

So for the time between knowing about my meeting and when it started, I really worked on focusing on what I did know and what was not speculation. And I went into my meeting a bit nervous, but not nearly as stressed as I might have been if I wasn’t working on not overthinking the future.

And of course the meeting wasn’t a bad thing. There were some communication things to work out so we had a better line of communication when discussing clients so there wouldn’t as many back and forth emails and texts. And we clarified some things that led to the miscommunication that both of us weren’t able to realize in written communication. Those things needed to be worked out and will only make work better for me going forward.

And then we started to discuss things that aren’t happening yet that we might want to change. I can’t go into too many details about it, but we discussed how to manage client communication better so anyone could help clients without needing access to as many things as we have right now. Also, how to make sure all new clients have everything they need in order to understand the company. Some of this would be about what my role might be like in the future, which is good to hear when I was worried earlier that I had done something really wrong and wondered if I was going to lose my job.

I’ve said this so many times before, but I wonder when I will stop worrying that I will be losing my job every time I have a meeting about something. I’ve gone a significant portion of my life since I have had that happen to me. And I haven’t had any quick turnaround with jobs like I did the year that things were the worst for me. I’ve been with my customer service job for about 9 months, and that’s the shortest time of any of my jobs right now. I’ve been working with my box office job for 7 years already! But I still have this stupid irrational fear of being fired for no reason.

Maybe because I am purposely working on fixing this way of thinking, things will be better for me in the future. At least now I know that some of the tools I wanted to use to test this challenge do work because this wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Just like when I set my monthly challenge, I guess I’ll see in a month how I feel. But I got a little idea now of what it could be like.

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Default Thumbnail3 Months At My New Job (or Having Another Job Review) Default ThumbnailWorking On A Work/Life Balance (or Almost Repeating A Recent Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Check-In (or Doing My Own Version Of An OTF Challenge This Month) Default ThumbnailTaking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailA Failed Monthly Challenge (or I’m Possibly Going To Fail Again This Month) Default ThumbnailFailing And Succeeding In One Monthly Challenge (or Another Repeat Challenge This Month)

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Planning Ahead Even If It’s Stressful (or I Might Be Moving)

Posted on August 27, 2021 | Comments Off on Planning Ahead Even If It’s Stressful (or I Might Be Moving)

With all the craziness of this past year, there are a few things that have been steady and stable in my life. And I was so grateful for those few things because I needed to feel some normalcy and consistency in the world. I do like having routine and not changing too much, but I also know sometimes change is good. But when I have something that makes me happy, I stick to that as long as I can.

And one of the stable things that has made me happy for a long time is where I live. I’ve been in my house for about 11 1/2 years now. It’s not perfect and there are things that I would change if I could, but it’s pretty amazing. I have my own space, I don’t share walls with anyone, it’s safe, and even though it might not have everything I want it does have everything I need. And most importantly for me, it’s very affordable. Living somewhere this long and in a rent-stabilized building has the advantage of the price not being able to increase that much each year. And rent-stabilized buildings also have extra protections from evictions (so landlords can’t just kick you out to raise the rent for a future tenant without a lot of hurdles).

And while I have been in other apartments before, I think this is the first place that really felt like home to me. My first apartment was when I was in college and it never really felt like home. It felt a bit like another dorm room to me. I also lived alone then and hated it, so that didn’t help. My second apartment felt a bit more like a home to me, but I shared it with a series of roomates and whenever I had to find someone else for the other room, it made my apartment feel less like it was mine. My current place has been the place I have lived the longest (except for my childhood home) and the first place that I made decor choices that took a bit more effort like putting up shelving or curtain rods. I have made this place my home and I really am happy here.

But the other day, I got a call from my landlord seeing if I’d be home next week. They are selling and their realtor needs to come in so they can make a digital floorplan. I let my landlord know that I’d be home and ended the call. And my mind started running a million miles an hour. I know that selling a building to a new owner isn’t rare, but I think we are in a unique situation. A new owner could keep things the way they are, but I really don’t think they would. There is a lot of space that could be used to build a building with double or triple the apartments. And even if they weren’t going to build a new building, I bet a new owner would want us to leave because they could get a lot more in rent. It still wouldn’t be easy to get rid of us, but it’s possible to do if they wanted to. And I really don’t question that is what will happen.

Of course, I’m thinking way ahead right now. It’s not even listed yet. I have no clue how long it will take to sell. After it sells, we can’t be kicked out right away. There will be at least a few months before that could happen, and that is if it happens. Maybe I’m wrong and nothing will change, but I can’t just think that and hope everything will be ok. So even though it does stress me out to think about moving, I’m trying to plan ahead. I know it won’t be fun to move, but it’s not the worst thing to have to do. I think I’m more stressed about finding a new place. There are a lot of ideas I’m trying to figure out for my next place, so I don’t have a lot planned. I just know I want to stay as close to my current neighborhood as possible. And I need to make sure that I don’t offset making more money right now with a huge increase in my monthly cost.

I’m glad I am starting to plan now so I don’t have to do everything last minute. That’s what I had to do when I moved the last time and I know how lucky I am that I found my current place. But I can’t believe I will necessarily have the same luck again. I have the luxury of having time now and I’m going to take advantage of that so I make sure my next move is the right one and I don’t have to settle for a place that doesn’t feel right to me.

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Default ThumbnailPlanning Way Too Far Ahead (or I Want It Now) Default ThumbnailA Free Weekday (or Planning Ahead For Fun Things) Default ThumbnailA House Anniversary (or A Decade In One Place) Default ThumbnailTrying To Plan Ahead (or Hopefully Things Will Normalize Soon) Default ThumbnailEnjoying The Now (or Not Trying To Skip Ahead To The Good Parts) Default ThumbnailFirst Weekend Of Freedom (or Looking Back Before Moving Forward)

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Remembering To Stay Calm (or Trying To Not Let The Little Things Get To Me)

Posted on January 15, 2021 | Comments Off on Remembering To Stay Calm (or Trying To Not Let The Little Things Get To Me)

Right now, it feels like there is very little that I can control. And the few things I can control aren’t the healthiest things (like how much/little I eat or sleep). And with so much that is out of my control, I almost want to have more control just to feel like it’s not as crazy. And when I can’t do that or if things don’t go the way I hope, it can be really tough to tolerate since I have so little happening in my life.

A good example is getting my groceries delivered. I very rarely go to the grocery store myself. I try to limit it to going to Trader Joe’s once a month or so because there are some things I can only get there. Most of the things I need I can get from another grocery store that delivers to me. I might have to make some changes to that because the grocery store I’ve been using fired all their union drivers to use non-union drivers, but that’s a separate issue (although maybe firing all the old drivers is what caused this issue).

The grocery delivery I have been using gives you different options when you select what time you want it delivered. There are 1 -hour, 2-hour, and 4-hour windows. The 1-hour ones are the most expensive and the 4-hour ones are the cheapest (none are free). I will usually pick a 4-hour window unless there are no other times coming up in the next day or two. And that’s something I encountered over the weekend when I tried to get some groceries delivered. The only option was a 1-hour window, so I paid for that and figured I’d have my groceries soon.

But they never arrived. I still don’t know what happened, but they “forgot” to have someone pick up my order to deliver it to me. And since the day ended, they canceled my order. I was fine and didn’t need the groceries at that moment, but it was still frustrating because I was hoping to make something for dinner that night that I couldn’t. And I was looking forward to knowing I was done with my grocery shopping for the week. Since my order was canceled, I placed another one for another day and was able to get a 4-hour delivery window.

Then that delivery never arrived on time. It did finally arrive about 5 hours late, and I guess late is better than never. But my frustration just kept building. I know that this is a service that there are human errors and delays that can happen, but it was one of the only things in my control and even that was no longer that way. I know it’s not a big deal, but it just felt that way to me. And I had to remember to not let this be a bigger thing than it really is.

I know staying calm these days is so important. Stress isn’t good for us at any time, but right now I know it can be even worse because our baseline stress levels are so much higher than normal. And I can feel in my body when I’m too stressed. My autoimmune conditions tend to get really bad, and I’m in the middle of a really bad flareup that I know is likely due to stress. Staying calm won’t necessarily resolve and fix everything, but staying stressed isn’t going to allow it to get any better.

I’ve let lots of little things get to me in the past 10 months that I’ve been isolating at home. Some of my go-to stress relief things aren’t an option for me right now, so even my normal stress has to be taken care of in different ways. And sometimes, I can handle things just fine. But to have a little freakout at home is probably to be expected. All of us are dealing with so much and if we were handling it fine, that would almost be a sign that something is wrong because this isn’t normal and fine.

Fortunately, I didn’t get upset or frustrated with anyone else like the customer service reps for my groceries. I kept it to myself and managed it on my own. And I was able to get over it pretty quickly and move on. I know it’s ok to be frustrated and stress and recognizing that and allowing myself moments to feel that way helps. And then I can move on with my day and hopefully try to stay calm and relaxed when dealing with other things in my life.

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Default ThumbnailI Guess This Is The Risk With Getting So Many Deliveries (or Thank Goodness For Good Customer Service) Default ThumbnailTime For Another MRI (or Still Trying To Stay Calm) Default ThumbnailTrying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe) Default ThumbnailTrying To Stay Calm (or Not Letting Panic Take Over) Default ThumbnailAppreciating The Little Things (or I’m Lucky To Have Awesome Friends) Default ThumbnailStill Wondering About The New Normal (or Baby Steps Back)

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