One day at a time

My whole life I've been a stresser. I stress about everything. I stress if there might not be enough toothpaste to finish off the week. I stress if I haven't talked to my mom in too long and she might think I'm avoiding her. I can't help it, and I try to work on it every day.

Since people started noticing my stress issues, they have been telling me to take it one day at a time. It really never made sense to me. I had to look big picture, small picture, and in-between picture, which resulted in, you-guessed-it, STRESS! As I get older, I'm starting to notice the heath effects. I have clenched and grinded my teeth each night since high school which has resulted in the moving of my teeth and jaw, tightening of my jaw muscles, and difficulty eating. My blood-pressure is far higher than it should be for a VERY healthy 22 year old woman. So that's my stress story in a nutshell. I try to manage it by working out, by relaxing, blah blah. Nothin works.

Now for the reason I'm writing this entry. I'm really trying my best to not let this job stress me out. I'm trying to finally take it one day at a time and trust that Cavan really means it when he says that he will help me no matter what I need (aka money). I'm beginning to trust my support system and realize that it's not the end of the world if everything doesn't go my way. As I grow up a little, I realize that sometimes the best things happen when everything is seemingly going wrong.

A year ago today, I resolutely left Portland to come to Minnesota and live with Cavan and "get a job." I did something heroic (for me)-- I quit my job (that I hated) without having another lined up, and I left. I went where I felt my heart leading me, and I didn't double and triple check that all of my safety nets were in place before I jumped. Granted, things were hard. Really hard. They're still far, far, far from easy. I'm struggling every day for money. After student loans, rent, groceries, and gas, I have almost zero spending or saving cash. Cavan really picks up the slack and treats us to dinner or a bottle of wine at least once a week, but only since he's gotten full time at the MLC can I really allow him to treat me without worrying about it. We're going to Duluth next weekend for a little mini-vacation and I almost feel like it's a new chapter starting, or the celebration of our hugely successful last chapter.

I have a lot of time here to think about things. To be honest, a lot of times I'm not the most productive worker. I've had so many great ideas, but I'm having a little bit of an issue really getting all of the emails out and researching all of the places that I need to contact and keeping track of what has been done, what I'm doing, and what still needs to be done. I do a lot of reflecting, so I'm never really bored. I have realized, though, since I've been here that I do oh-so-much better when I have specific tasks to focus on and complete. It's just the person I am and the person I've always been. It just so happens that here at this job, I'm really only responsible for completing ambiguous and tenuous things throughout the year and I don't have a ton of tasks that I can think about completing. I need to figure out the best way of setting small goals for myself and tackling them to feel a sense of accomplishment and therefore motivation throughout the day. 

I am going to try to get this part of my life in check. It's one of my goals for this year.