No Stress At All

I just read Dr. Helen and she talked about how stress on the job affects your health. I tried to comment but had some trouble and since stress everywhere directly affects my blood pressure I thought I might comment here. First let me get the stress of weight gain out of the way. I MUST get a grip -- so far 5 of 6 pounds have crept up on me it depends on which scale I sneak onto. TODAY I march against weight gain. I know exactly what it is all about. Start of season. More wine more food more more more and less walking.

My first real job was teaching and I did that for one school year. I absorbed every pain and trauma those kids had. It was 6th grade and it was 1965. There was a ton of trauma but thank you there were no cell phones, sex in the hallways or gang bangers. The closest we came to anything sexual was when BG stood on her head out on the playground. All girls wore skirts or dresses so there you have it. She knew and loved the attention her lollipop undies got. I stapled the skirt between her legs and off we went. Couldn't do that today. No girl in 6th grade wears skirts or dresses anyway. Sigh.

That job had me crazy. I stayed at school way past the closing time preparing for the next day. I brought papers home to grade and lesson plans to write. Most of my friends were teachers and they never had all the junk I had. They were free every weekend and evening and were home by 3pm to work on their lives. I don't know how they did it but I didn't and it wore me down and I left after that year and went to work in the corporate world. I wanted a job from 9 to 5 and when I left the office it stayed there. I brought nothing home to work on or worry over. That worked for a while and then came the promotions. For 30 years I stayed late and went in on week ends and you got it!!! It's not the job it's me.

I have since retired and am locked into a family mess that one day I will write a book about. The stress is never ending but I keep recalling a discussion with a doctor years ago. My period was so irregular I thought I must have some dread something. Too young for menopause I went to the doctor and he asked a series of questions. Any stress in your life. I answered no and then he chatted with me about my life of late. Well, I said, my husband committed suicide several months ago. He had no insurance and had what I now see as manic depressive personality. He charged up a storm before he went and I had to pay off all the bills. The bill collectors, they were calling. I owed money to the funeral home. We had sold our home in another state and basically just paid the mortgage off and had enough to pay the mover. I was living in my parents home while they were in Florida for the winter. All my furniture and boxes were piled in two rooms. I had no real job. I was waiting for a transfer to come through from the place I worked out of state to the state I was now living. Major corporation, the job will come sooner or later but at the time I was a Kelly Girl. No. No stress in my life.

Imagine I didn't see any stress. It doesn't hit all at once. It drip drip drips on to you and accumulates bit by bit day by day until you creak under the burden but you are so used to it you don't even fell it any more. Your body does however and your spirit does and your mind has those little cubby holes where problems lurk and ....


I pray every day for those that burden me and for those I burden. Please Lord, just enough stress to make it interesting. Use the painful scrapings of problems to polish me like a stone in the river. Give me the strength to know when I should not resist. Keep me in the palm of Your hand and widen my horizons. I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.