Have you ever had so much stress inside your body you felt you couldn’t breathe? Of course you have! You’re a mom!
The idea of Yev and me moving is becoming more of a reality with each day, and I feel like my sanity is crumbling as quickly as our dreams are actualizing.
I’ve never done a big move before. At least not with a family. I spent a year in Ireland and a year in France, but all I took was a suitcase. Not a car, a dog, or furniture.
There are a lot of moving pieces, and I don’t do well with uncertainty. I make tentative plans to alleviate my anxiety, but the researching stage is coming to an end unless we start making some decisions. And I am a ball of stress!
Yev and I unfortunately handle distress differently. He wants to hole himself away with video games, and I want to talk until I’m so tired, I can’t even remember what I’m stressed about. Two very different styles that inherently repel each other.
Last night I thought I was going to explode from stress. Thankfully it was Wine Wednesday, and my girlfriends let me talk at them. I make the distinction between “at” and “to” because I was a downpour of information that these two ladies helped absorb for me. They held space for me and just let me fall apart.
Let me tell you friends, this was invaluable.
We don’t get to fall apart because we’re Mom. Mom is the first one up, last to bed. The one who’s up in the middle of the night too. We are our family’s foundation, so if we crumble, our family comes down too. Talk about pressure!
But my friends let me fall apart, which is my most vulnerable expression. I’m an overachiever whose threshold for emotional discomfort is so deep, it’s not healthy. So when I’m not coping, I’m really not ok.
But there was no embarrassment or guilt last night. I was genuinely excited to hop on my zoom with the girls to just unload. They listened and offered encouragement, and because of them, I am better.
Invest in good friends. The ones that quarantine can’t defeat. The ones political affiliation can’t separate. The ones who invest back into you.
Jacqueline Pinchuk 