Half-Empty and Half-Full
It's been a rough month. One day I was playing tennis, breaking in a new doubles partnership, and working at a job I liked. My pay check stretched far enough to allow me frequent meals out and coffee at my favorite coffee house. My anxiety was in check; my stress level seemed to have settled into an new-found low. I was happy most days, even on the days when I yipped my way through multiple double faults and on the days when the amount of work at work seemed insurmountable. I was riding a wave, a really good wave.
And then I hit a forehand wrong and felt a sharp pinch and burning sensation in my elbow. A week later I was out of tennis and back working a stressful day job. Trips to various doctors and physical therapists quickly drained my bank account. My social life (what little the introvert in me craved) ended when tennis ended. Meals out and coffee became a memory. And with all that, my stress level rose to what surely feels like an all-time high.
~
Imagine for a moment a bucket. It can be plastic or metal. Whatever color you choose. Mine, the one in my imaginings, though, it old and made of burnished brown wood. It looks a bit like the whiskey barrels we sell at work, only substantially smaller. If you can picture an old well behind and old farm house, the bucket swinging above the gaping opening probably looks a lot like mine.
Now place your bucket on the floor and look down inside. What do you see? Maybe it's happiness or sadness, the future, the faces of your children. If you look into mine, you'll see stress, anxiety. If you happened to look into it the moment before I hit that famous forehand that sent my life into a tailspin, you would have seen a nearly bone-dry bottom. If you'd turned it over and shaken it violently, one or two drops might have dribbled out onto the floor (mostly related to my serve).
If you looked back into my bucket a week after the injury, the moment the doctor told me that I needed a minimum of eight weeks away from tennis and eight weeks of light duty at work, you would have seen my bucket immediately fill to the halfway point.
Now to you, the bucket may have looked half-empty. It's not so bad, Stacee. You get to move back to days. You'll have more time to write. You can run and do other things besides tennis to stay in shape. And I'm sure from the outside looking in, that's exactly what it looked like and probably still does. Perhaps it's not the case when pondering a glass of wine, but when talking about a bucket of stress, half-empty is better than half-full. Always.
My experience, though, was a bit different and still is. That day, the day my doctor made his grand pronouncement, my bucket was lowered into the Stress Well and came up half-full. And, even then, if I didn't carry it just right, all that stress threatened to splash out all over me. Take away tennis, my main stress-reliever (shitty serve aside) and add in forty-hours a week at a stress-inducing job? I'm usually able to "fake it 'til I make it" and I've famously made the choice to like it when "like it or like it" were the only options. But this... This has been rough.
As the days have passed, my bucket has gotten fuller and fuller. This morning as I sit typing this, it's full, so full I can no longer carry it without spilling it. There are moments when I feel like I'm bailing the Titanic knowing full-well that she's going down regardless.
It's a vicious circle, anxiety. The more you have, the more you seem to get. If it's not one thing, it's another. An eight day work week, five calls to AT&T to straighten out a bill, dogs that poop in the house when it rains, $100/visit for physical therapy, $69 for anti-itchy pills to keep the old dog from eating herself. What normally wouldn't be a bother, suddenly bothers. Incessantly.
And the bucket fills. And fills. And fills. Then overflows. What then? How do you mop up a mess that only creates more mess?
I'd give anything to go back to my empty bucket. Hell, I'd love to go back to my half-full bucket. I'd probably even give up several years of my life to be able to see the bucket as half-empty, a few years more to have the luxury of seeing it from the outside looking in.
There are two choices, as there always are. To breathe or not to breathe. One of the choices is easy, the other, sadly, is not.
I am hopeful that I will survive today and tomorrow and that after a day off Saturday, my first in eight days from the stress-inducing day job, I will find the bucket only three-quarters full. In the meantime, if you see me moving too slow or too fast or I'm a little too quiet or too loud, it's because my bucket is really, really, really full and I'm trying really, really, really hard not to spill it.
And then I hit a forehand wrong and felt a sharp pinch and burning sensation in my elbow. A week later I was out of tennis and back working a stressful day job. Trips to various doctors and physical therapists quickly drained my bank account. My social life (what little the introvert in me craved) ended when tennis ended. Meals out and coffee became a memory. And with all that, my stress level rose to what surely feels like an all-time high.
~
Imagine for a moment a bucket. It can be plastic or metal. Whatever color you choose. Mine, the one in my imaginings, though, it old and made of burnished brown wood. It looks a bit like the whiskey barrels we sell at work, only substantially smaller. If you can picture an old well behind and old farm house, the bucket swinging above the gaping opening probably looks a lot like mine.
Now place your bucket on the floor and look down inside. What do you see? Maybe it's happiness or sadness, the future, the faces of your children. If you look into mine, you'll see stress, anxiety. If you happened to look into it the moment before I hit that famous forehand that sent my life into a tailspin, you would have seen a nearly bone-dry bottom. If you'd turned it over and shaken it violently, one or two drops might have dribbled out onto the floor (mostly related to my serve).
If you looked back into my bucket a week after the injury, the moment the doctor told me that I needed a minimum of eight weeks away from tennis and eight weeks of light duty at work, you would have seen my bucket immediately fill to the halfway point.
Now to you, the bucket may have looked half-empty. It's not so bad, Stacee. You get to move back to days. You'll have more time to write. You can run and do other things besides tennis to stay in shape. And I'm sure from the outside looking in, that's exactly what it looked like and probably still does. Perhaps it's not the case when pondering a glass of wine, but when talking about a bucket of stress, half-empty is better than half-full. Always.
My experience, though, was a bit different and still is. That day, the day my doctor made his grand pronouncement, my bucket was lowered into the Stress Well and came up half-full. And, even then, if I didn't carry it just right, all that stress threatened to splash out all over me. Take away tennis, my main stress-reliever (shitty serve aside) and add in forty-hours a week at a stress-inducing job? I'm usually able to "fake it 'til I make it" and I've famously made the choice to like it when "like it or like it" were the only options. But this... This has been rough.
As the days have passed, my bucket has gotten fuller and fuller. This morning as I sit typing this, it's full, so full I can no longer carry it without spilling it. There are moments when I feel like I'm bailing the Titanic knowing full-well that she's going down regardless.
It's a vicious circle, anxiety. The more you have, the more you seem to get. If it's not one thing, it's another. An eight day work week, five calls to AT&T to straighten out a bill, dogs that poop in the house when it rains, $100/visit for physical therapy, $69 for anti-itchy pills to keep the old dog from eating herself. What normally wouldn't be a bother, suddenly bothers. Incessantly.
And the bucket fills. And fills. And fills. Then overflows. What then? How do you mop up a mess that only creates more mess?
I'd give anything to go back to my empty bucket. Hell, I'd love to go back to my half-full bucket. I'd probably even give up several years of my life to be able to see the bucket as half-empty, a few years more to have the luxury of seeing it from the outside looking in.
There are two choices, as there always are. To breathe or not to breathe. One of the choices is easy, the other, sadly, is not.
I am hopeful that I will survive today and tomorrow and that after a day off Saturday, my first in eight days from the stress-inducing day job, I will find the bucket only three-quarters full. In the meantime, if you see me moving too slow or too fast or I'm a little too quiet or too loud, it's because my bucket is really, really, really full and I'm trying really, really, really hard not to spill it.
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