I've been sick.

Sick with worry and stress, consumed by the pressures on me in my life. I seem, perhaps, from the outside to hold it together. To be ok. But really, sometimes, I'm not. My work is a rollercoaster ride between high and low: the kindness of someone who wants to help and the thrill of teaching self-defense butt up against the isolation and struggle of being in it alone, for the most part, for the long haul. And it's not that I'm alone, only that in the hardest moments, it feels that way. And it's what I don't say to most, but that some see, that my lover sees, sleeping beside me when, in an all too familiar routine, I run for the bathroom, my stomach unable to settle itself, my mind in a rumble of thoughts, of "to do" lists. I was never trained to run a non-profit. I was thrown into the job without preparation, though imbued with a big love for the work and belief in what I'm doing and somehow, the motivation to keep trying.

And it is not this alone, that keeps me up nights, but perhaps it's the very thing I love the most, that I fight for the hardest that stands out among the day-to-day worries and stresses. Because it IS worth fighting for and although I am a good fighter, sometimes I just don't have the tools I need to win the game.

My therapist gently reminds me that I need to adjust my reaction to stress, because after all, life is stressful. So I breathe and stretch and procrastinate as little as possible and some days I feel just fine. But now, getting ready to leave it behind for some much needed rest, with no one else to watch it when I'm gone and the government to report to and accountants to please, it just feels like a goliath responsibility.

Now, where did I put that sling?

January 8, 2003