I wonder what it would be like to have home be a refuge from work. I spent a decade as a Stay At Home Mom. Home and family was my work. Now I’m a Work From Home Mom. Again my work is all in my house. I use the different types of work to give me breaks. I take a break from business stuff by taking care of Mommy or house stuff. I take a break from Mommy stuff by doing business or house stuff. I don’t often need a break from house stuff because I don’t do it often enough to get really tired of it. (This is a mistake, by the way. having the house a mess is depressing.) In theory this rotation works, but the reality is that sometimes I feel like a cartoon character sitting dizzily on the floor while the different types of work circle my head like tweeting birds.

Yesterday I left my house. This is not unusual. I run all sorts of errands on a daily basis. What was different is that I had no agenda other than “get out of the house.” I went to the library. I wandered the stacks, picked a few books, then sat down and read for two hours. I could feel the tension unwind inside. People wandered by my reading spot, but not one of them needed anything from me. There was no work nearby that I could just do “real quick.” If I wanted to do any work, I had to walk out of the library and drive for 10 minutes. It was a lovely, lovely break. When I got back home, I liked my house again. I was glad to see Howard and the kids. I felt better about everything.

I’ve been thinking that I did not need to schedule breaks into my life the way that I used to, because now the kids are all gone for school on a daily basis. But I need to remember that rotation of work is not the same as a real break.

I am grouchy today. Everywhere I look I see all the small damages that house and furniture acquire after years of use. Each thing is small, but the accumulation makes me feel like my home is shabby. Even worse is knowing that many days I don’t even notice all of this stuff. How many people have I invited to sit on that couch with the stuffing coming out of the split in the cushion? The same split I intended to repair years ago? Sigh. It makes me want to refurbish and paint everything. Except I know that I do not have the time to undertake a series of home improvement projects. And I do not have the money to pay someone else to undertake them for me. At least not right now. Little by little we’re starting to use excess funds to make some of the repairs. We ordered new blinds a couple of weeks ago to replace the stained curtains which are falling off the bent curtain rod in the boys room. I wish they were here already. Maybe then I could believe that I’m actually going to start doing all this stuff instead of getting distracted and forgetting it for another 5-10 years, during which family and friends will politely ignore the stuffing spilling out of the couch cushions.

Gleek talking to her brothers: “I hope that next year Bestfriend and I are in the same class, because we both know how to speak pig latin. Then we could talk to each other and no one would know what we’re saying!”

It continually amazes me to watch the kids discovering as new things that were already old when I discovered them 30 years ago. Folklore is alive and well, transmitted through public schools from generation to generation. Gleek and bestfriend have delighted in speaking lots of pig latin over the last few weeks.

I’ve been dragging all week long. Usually I spend the morning knocking down multiple small items on my To Do list, or knocking down one big item. By afternoon I’m ready to slow down. This week the mornings have been slow and the afternoons have been close to a dead stop. Yesterday morning I admitted defeat and went back to bed as soon as I got the kids off to school. I slept for nearly two hours. Then I got up and ate breakfast. Yesterday was still pretty slow, but this morning I’m feeling closer to normal. I think I may have been fighting an illness. Or maybe I was still recovering from not getting to sleep in over the weekend. Or maybe sleep and food are good for me. Who knew?

The one thing I did get done yesterday was to put most of the labels on the last 800 post cards. Patch and I sat at the table with my little video player. We watched Mythbusters while applying labels and stamps. Patch was very pleased to be able to help. He was even more pleased to be earning a little money for his work. He’s saving up for an Indian Jones lego set like Link has. It was fun to sit at the table with him. We occasionally commented to each other about the show. Other times Patch would tell me about things that happened at school. Patch has a strong need to verbalize his experiences. I need to be making more time to listen to him because it is always interesting to hear the connections he makes.

The only other thing I managed to accomplish yesterday was laundry. Laundry is something of a nemesis lately. It seems like every time I turn around the baskets of clean laundry are empty and the dirty laundry hampers are full. Lately the clothes cycle from clean basket to dirty hamper without ever seeing the inside of a drawer or closet. This has the effect of making us all feel jumbled because we all have to rummage through piles to find clothes to wear. Obviously the system needs an overhaul of some kind, but I can see what to change yet.

Today I am shipping out packages, finishing laundry, mailing post cards, and making sure I eat on schedule. Tomorrow I am sleeping late because it is Saturday and I can.

Yesterday Janci came over and helped me put address labels and stamps on 2300 post cards. Patch helped too and had a great time doing it. Today I have 800 more to do. Those are the holiday thank you cards to all the people who ordered stuff from our online store. After that is done, I need to contemplate sending out an actual holiday letter to friends and family. Every year I think about it, but I rarely get them done. We’ll see if this year is any different.

If you take a straw and bend it carefully, you can make it curve gently. If you bend it too hard, then the straw will crimp and bend sharply in one spot. After the straw has acquired a crimp, you can no longer achieve that gentle curve, because the straw responds to the stress by bending sharply in the one spot rather than gently over the whole length of the straw. Minds and bodies are like straws in this respect. They develop learned responses to stress. Sometimes we can turn this to our advantage as when we use exercise to teach our muscles to be stronger. A muscle that has once been strong is easier to make strong again. If a writer teaches herself to write every day, but then falls out of the habit. That habit will be easier to pick up again than it was to make new. Unfortunately these learned responses are just as often to our detriment. We turn to comfort foods that are not good for us. We find that the injured knee is never quite as strong as it was before.

Early in September of 2007 I crimped myself. There was one day in which we learned that the guy who had been doing layout for the Schlock books was not going to do any more. We also learned that a large chunk of investment money was never going to come back to us. That represented a loss of income as well as the investment capital itself. Those were the final pieces, but also part of the stress load were:
Being invited to participate in a writer’s group full of very professional writers. (A happy thing, but still stressful)
The Blank Label Comics split (It was amicable, but still required careful handling)
The low balances in all our bank accounts
The last finishing touches on Tub of Happiness
Impending book shipping
Looking forward and seeing that 2008 was already packed to the gills with convention appearances
Wanting desperately to have more publication credits before some of the convention appearances
The, still incomplete, Hold on to Your Horses project
Picking up a roleplaying game for the first time in a decade (fun, but still energy gobbling)
Conflict with a very good friend who was also under a huge stress load
The kids were starting school again and all of them were in transition grades
Teaching a once-per-week creative writing class for 4-6 graders. (This project took more of my time the longer it continued)
Being a cub scout den leader once per week (and being told that I couldn’t bring the young ones, they were too disruptive.)
And all the normal family and household maintenance tasks that are never ending.

At first I thought I was sick. I was shaky and cold. My heart raced and thumped in my chest. It was like being afraid, but it made no sense for me to be afraid while sitting at my computer doing accounting. My concentration was shot and I could barely keep track of what I was doing. Every small challenge was magnified and I imagined how they could end up with the direst possible consequences. I had to get up and walk away from the accounting. A nap and some reading restored normality, but it all came crashing back the minute I sat back down to do the accounting. And accounting wasn’t the only time. I feeling this way multiple times per day in all sorts of situations.

In hindsight I can see that I was suffering stress-induced panic attacks. I just didn’t recognize them as such because to me “panic attack” mean curling into a ball completely unable to function. I could function, it was just really hard. Everything took longer either because I was working despite the fog of an anxiety state or because I was trying to stay mellow to avoid triggering an anxiety state. Being terrified that something was physically wrong with my heart and adrenal system did not help. Neither did being terrified that I would be physically incapable of accomplishing the hundreds of tasks necessary to keep the family and business running.

The worst of it ended when we opened pre-orders for Tub of Happiness at the end of September. Once again we had money to pay our bills. Several other stresses ended in October which reduced the anxiety states even further to only 1 or 2 per week. I learned what steps to take to soothe the anxiety away. I also learned how to sense one coming and preempt it. Over the next few months we simplified our lives and the attacks became increasingly less common and less severe. Until one day I realized that it had been months since I’d had one.

It has been almost a year since I’ve had an attack as severe as those I experienced last Fall and Winter. The effects linger though. When I am under stress, I start to feel shaky, cold, and my heart rate increases. The good news is that I’ve adapted. I know how to recognize the signs and take a break from the stressors. The other good news is that most of the things that were piled on me last Fall are now gone. I’m more careful about what I commit to doing. Knowing my own limits is a good thing. It is also a good thing to realize that I can keep going even when doing something that makes me anxious. Twice I’ve had to walk away from this entry. Once I nearly deleted it. But I’m going to post this anyway because having anxiety is something everyone deals with. I will only be an anxious person if I allow my anxiety to dictate my actions.

I enjoy spending time with my family. It is endlessly interesting to review shared history and see it from different angles. I always come away with thoughts about who I am and where I have come from. This visit also gave me a chance to see more extended family as well. I saw aunts and uncles that I’ve not spoken to in years. It was good to catch up, but also overwhelming. There are so many of them and they all have so many children who then went on to have children. I can go to a family gathering and only recognize a quarter of the people there. Most of the conversations start with “Now who do you belong to?”

You see, my grandmother died giving birth to her 11th child. My grandfather then married a widow with five children of her own. My mother is one of 16 children. Those 16 children all got married and then had an average of 5 children each. I have 100 first cousins. I don’t even know most of them. The uncle who died was not one that I’d known well. But it was important to be there. It was important to reconnect with family. My uncle was afforded military honors for his service. The concussion from the three rifle volleys hit me with a physical impact. The bugle made me cry. I stood there, knowing that many people have stood similarly before. Someday it will be my turn to plan a funeral. But not today. Today I get to hug my kids and husband close.

By 10 am this morning all the relatives had gone home. I breathed the relief of having my house to myself again. No matter how much I love the people, being surrounded all the time is hard. I’m an introvert. Fortunately my family understands this. We’re all pretty introverted. So we socialize lots while we’re together and then decompress after the visit is over.

As usual when I have a house full of relatives, I have trouble finding the brain space to write. But it has been a wonderful chance to catch up. Things will be back to normal tomorrow.

12:30 AM welcome my sister and her family and help them bed down for the night. The baby objects to being put back to bed after being woken up. The crying lasts until around 1.

1:30 AM Patch has an attack of croup. I snatch him up, send Gleek back to bed, and take him outside into the cold air. We sit there shivering until the cool air helps clear his breathing. Howard brings us a blanket and resettles Gleek. Then I bring Patch back inside into the steamy bathroom to further clear up his cough.

2:00 AM I tuck Patch into bed between Howard and I. We try to go back to sleep while also listening to Patch’s breathing to make sure that he’ll be okay. The two activities do not go well together.

6:17 AM My alarm goes off and I roll out of bed to make breakfast. I have to be careful not to step on Link who chose to sleep on the floor by my bed rather than on a mattress in the girl’s room. (My sister has Link’s room.)

6:50 AM I feed breakfast to my Mom and Dad so that they can leave for the viewing. A few other people also wake-up and wander out to be fed. Link wanders down, which is good since I need to get him dressed and ready for his Scout Pow Wow.

7:15 Mom and Dad leave. I concentrate on helping Link get ready.

7:45 Link heads out the door. I head to take a shower.

Still to come:

9:15 AM My sister and I leave to drive 90 minutes to the funeral

10:00 AM Howard sends Patch and Gleek to a primary program practice, while my brother-in-law takes his girls to visit some other relatives. Kiki (hopefully) does homework during this time. Howard has a quiet space to get work done.

11:AM Funeral

Noon Kids arrive back at the house. Howard feeds them lunch.

3-ish I come back home and begin preparations for my mom’s birthday celebration tomorrow. I also need to replace the air mattress that went flat under Gleek last night. I also need to retrieve the nebulizer I loaned to a neighbor in case there is more croup tonight.

Then there will be bedtime craziness as we try to put seven kids to bed using three bedrooms or less.

Many times I’ve read articles bemoaning the fact that people try to dodge responsibility for things that they have done. I have the opposite problem. I grab responsibility for things which were truly not my fault. When I find myself in a heated exchange of words or a conflict, I feel like it is my job to fix it. Even when I can logically see that the best thing for me to do is leave it alone, the back of my brain keeps churning. It rehashes conversations or online exchanges, rehearsing things I could say or do. Somehow this back part of my brain believes that if I can only find the right action or words, I can make everything better and we can all be friends. Except, for some situations, it really is best to just walk away because mucking about trying to fix it will only continue the conflict rather than letting it fade away. I just wish my logical brain and my emotional brain would not work at cross purposes this way. It makes the inside of my head noisy until I want to hide from my own thoughts.

On a much happier note: Stacy Whitman, a former Mirrorstone editor gone freelance, interviewed me on her blog yesterday. We talked about my experiences with self publishing. It was fun to answer the questions because it showed me some things about my experiences that I hadn’t put together in exactly that way before. The interview is long, but if you’re interested You can find it here.