Stress, Stress, Stress...

I've been stressed at work lately... so stressed that it's awfully hard to detach from the work and live outside in the world.  And stress, as so many of us knows, has no regard for boundaries to begin with.  I truly envy those people who are able to find solace in a hobby or passion that shuts out the stress; it isn't that way for me.  The more I try to find relief, the more persistent the stress seems to become.

I force myself to make time for things that the gurus and TV doctors and real world doctors swear will help.  The trouble is, I really don't want to do any of them.  I joined a gym and exercise, which I hate doing.  I get regular mechanical chair massages at the same gym, my reward for going through the motions and making my body move.  I sketch or color, sometimes, though I've discovered that those "relaxing" coloring pattern books actually stress me out to no end; I fret over staying inside all the lines and getting every detailed hole filled in, and my fingers wind up cramped and my shoulders wind into knots. I go to bed earlier... and earlier... to the point that my ten year old son now to bed after me most nights.  But getting enough sleep is supposed to help, yes?  I pet my cats, which is supposed to lower my blood pressure, but that just reminds me that I don't, sadly, take my dogs out as much as they'd like - which is to say at all, cold-averse weather wimp that I am.

And I try to make time to write.  Ah, time to write.  THAT should be a stress reliever.  That, at least, is one thing I've always been good at - escaping into my own dream worlds, visiting with my imaginary people.

But not now.  Now, the words desert me when it's Time to Write, leaving me staring at the page or screen with a direct line to Writer's Block Superstore on speed dial.  Guilt comes calling - I should be writing; I made this time for writing, and I should be using it - then anxiety - why can't I write?  Will I ever be able to write the way I used to?  To find relief in writing?  WHY CAN'T I WRITE?  Finally shame joins the party, sadistically gleeful - I'm just not disciplined enough to write through this, and other writers are, and that's why THEY get published and I don't.  

It's enough to make a girl wish she didn't have time to write to begin with.