Whelmed?

"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?" -Chastity from "10 Things I Hate About You"

I don't know, Chastity, but I know I'm not whelmed right now. I'm one of the others.  And I know this because I've been basically silent for the last two weeks.

Until yesterday. I had this misconception that I was a talented stress-curtailer. I thought I was Mrs. Pluck and that I was getting better at relying on God.

Long story short: I threw a temper tantrum yesterday when I realized I might have messed up my new teacher orientation schedule. As if I was watching from above I saw a crazy woman completely fall of her rocker in frustration with herself over something that I know is probably minor.

How do we fool ourselves like this? We think we are handling things efficiently and effectively. Look at me go! I am fully relying on God.

CRASH!

There are NO SOLUTIONS TO MY PROBLEMS!

Courtesy of Master isolated images/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It turns out that it wasn't the biggest deal in the world that I missed it.  In the middle of my tantrum I realized that my frustration was based on my feelings of what other people thought.  You'd imagine that fact would help calm me: nope.  I kept choosing anger and frustration at myself.

I offer no profound solutions for dealing with stress, what to do to rid yourself of stress, or how to recognize you're suffering from the overwhelming feeling in the background, except to say that the only thing that kept me from completely breaking down (though, whether or not I did is debatable) was the steadiness of my husband.  He listened, he was patient, he did everything he could help calm me down until last night he just said, "That's enough. You are not allowed to talk badly about yourself anymore. No more beating up on yourself. None. You're not allowed."

I know it was frustrating for him to see this woman he didn't know occupying his wife's body.  He stayed calm. He stayed supportive. He didn't blow it off or somehow tell me my concerns were invalid. He didn't call me silly and he didn't yell back at me.

Please be that person for someone the next time you are around a two-year-old adult. I really needed him (all the time) last night.