I Am Feeling Overwhelmed

But for a good reason, you know?

Moving has a lot of, uh, moving parts. 

And now that the excitement of seeing the house in person (more on that later) has happened for me, now it seems that all that's left is a bunch of stress and timing. 

This morning before 10am I had:

• Taken a call from a plumber in Florida to get a snafu fixed where they "forgot" to pull a permit on a repipe we had done in 2016
• Emailed our pool service company to ask "WTF" because the last few times they've come to clean our BRANDLY NEW RESURFACED POOL it has still been green. But, like, in lines, like they hadn't been brushing the pool properly. The water is clear, there'd just been a bit of residual green. 
• WELL, when I got back from my inspection trip yesterday, the entire pool dark green and swampy and I AM PISSED. 
• The water is still crystal clear though
• Been angry at myself for giving them the benefit of the doubt and not asking them about this a couple weeks ago.
• Called Pods to arrange a drop off tomorrow
• Realize the quote from just over a week ago went up by over $500
• Book it anyways
• Texted an electrician in Michigan to get a quote on an electricity repair we would like taken care of in The Professor House before we close. 
• Talked to our Florida realtor about getting our house on the market sooner than we originally planned, because we did NOT expect to find a house up there this quickly
• Had a visit from a plumber who tells us that to fix their original fuck up they will have to treat this as a completely new repipe with holes in our walls and all that. BUT doing so would bring us up to 2022 code, at no cost to us.
• Got excited because that seems like something awesome to offer a new buyer
• Told my realtor this immediately after the plumber leaves
• He tells me, "NO DO NOT HAVE THEM PULL A PERMIT"
• So I panicked, and jumped up from my perch on the couch and ran out of the house with no shoes on and my arms flailing to catch the plumber before he left. 
• Knocked on the plumber's car window and scare the living shit out of him
• Explained the situation to him and ask them NOT to pull a permit yet.
• Gave the number of the director of the plumbing folks to my Florida realtor so they can work out a solution independent of me, because I just seem to be doing all the wrong things in regards to this
• Waited impatiently for a response from the electrician from Michigan
• Panicked and wondered if I should call instead
• Gave myself a deadline of 1pm. If they haven't replied by then, I will call. 
• Realized I'll have to do so much cleaning up tomorrow when the dumpster and Pods arrive so that our realtor can take photos on Thursday.
• Remembered my arms are lil noodles.
• Panicked again in general. 
• Realized that we probably won't really have a going away party because Florida is a shitty unsafe state.
• No, I do not want to clean up after a party in the middle of moving.
• Yes, I know some people will help clean up and most of my friends are neat and tidy. There is still a lot involved in doing an event like this that I simply do not have the time or brain capacity for.
• No, a normal place that we used to visit all the time wouldn't work out, because their safety standards just don't feel safe to me and I cannot afford to get sick in the middle of a move.
• No, seeing everyone separately for one-on-one hangs won't work because we simply do not have time for that.
• Be sad about this for a long time. All the time. 
• Then just realize that I'll just have to invite everyone to our professorhousewarming. 
• Looked around the chaos in the living room and try to work.
• It does not happen, so I try to work on stuff for our podcast
• Also not going great, Bob. 

• So now I am blogging.

And y'all, at times like this is it so hard for me to change the tape in my head. It's so hard to switch the song from a sad-sack-woe-is-me-everything is going wrong to one of hope and happiness. 

My brain is telling me I should feel bad that I didn't just do an overnight trip for the inspection. Why did I waste all that time and money on extra days? It was a blast, don't get me wrong, but I feel mega guilty for it now. I should have been here working on getting things ready for the move. 

It's also really hard for me when I feel overwhelmed or stressed or sad (or any negative emotion, really) because I'm normally the one reminding other people not to focus on those emotions. 

In the past, I've just shoved my negative emotions to the side, because I got in trouble for 'em. Which, honestly, just made them bigger, but now they are stuck under pressure because I didn't feel safe sharing them. 

I feel safe having them and sharing them now (this is a safe space after all) but I still feel guilty for having them.

Luckily my lil poster is still hanging up. It's just a little harder to read with my eyes filled up with tears, you know?

There are some other contributing factors that I know are making this all seem much bigger than it really is and I have to remind myself of that too. 

I haven't taken my gross nutrition cubes for two days because I was off my normal schedule and felt weird choking them down in public. 

I am also ovulating any day now which effects my mood a whole lot. The closer I get to menopause, the worse my wild hormone swings get. 

The gross nutrition cubes really help me with that and I'm so mad at myself for skipping them the last two days. 

BUT WHAT AM I TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH BY BEING MAD AT MYSELF?

That, I do not know. But I do it because so many other people have blamed me for all the things that go wrong, whether they were my fault or not, I just automatically do it naturally so I'm prepared for when it happens. 

Here's what I have to remind myself, though - that doesn't happen anymore - and it hasn't for a long while. 

My brain has a real hard time letting go of that though. 

So being responsible for this many things has my brain going into overdrive because of all the things I could potentially "get in trouble" for. 

It's a lot. 

But at least I understand what's going on in my brain a little better now. Previously, I would have put a lot of pressure on the people around me because of what my brain was expecting them to do when I "screwed up". It was like my brain was pre-panicking and holding the other person or people responsible for actions that were taking place in my brain only. 

And that's not fair to ANYONE, including me. 

So I'm trying really hard not to do that today. Because it serves literally no purpose. 

I'm trying to train my brain to react only when things actually happen... not when I think they might, because a lot of times.... nothing bad happens, but my mind and body went through the traumadrama of unnecessarily reacting anyways. 

And I just don't need to do that. It's pointless. I'm trying to adopt a "face value" policy.

Like I've talked about before, I've been working really hard on some tools to get me out of these spins. 

Unfortunately my favorite one (floating) is out of the picture because our pool is all green. 

Actually, this blogging kind of helped, I think. Thanks for listening. 

Let's see if I can get some work done at least.