Pendulum status

I have lots to say but not much energy to say it. I've tried to avoid posting a woe-is-me story on my blog, but life is full of ups and downs, and things have been down, so here goes. The past two days have been some of the worst I've had in a while. Part of it is Hurricane Ernesto, part of it is my job, part of it is my mom, and the rest of it is me. Ok, maybe all of it is me and the rest is just details, but the devil's in the details, y'know? Start with the job. Yeah, I work from home and things are all hunky-dory as far as that goes, but recently my network connection has been dog-slow. I'm up against a deadline to get a project delivered, and I'm trying to focus on getting the work done, and Chris keeps interrupting me wanting my opinion on what to do to prepare for Ernesto, and my mom called asking when I'd be down to help her prepare for Ernesto, and it was just a pressure-cooker of a morning. I just realized that I have a bright light I can focus on at the end of this tunnel. The hurricane will push out my deadline. Our office is closed for at least Tuesday, and probably Wednesday, so I have more time to work (assuming I can connect). Yay! (See Larry, it helps me to talk things out, too.) Moving on to my mom. She is a complicated person. She and I haven't gotten along very well of late. To be honest, I have avoided her for about two months. Every time I've seen her this year she has been unhappy about something. I try to focus on the bright side of things, and she just won't have it. The last straw was when she twisted my bright-side-focusing to mean that I judged her. So, according to her, I'm not allowed to have an opinion about things, I should just say, "Awwww, that's so awful! I'm soooo sorry!" And I should twist everything into a huge catastrophe when most of the time things are just minor issues. She's great at playing the victim, and I'm not playing that game anymore. Sadly, there is no bright light at the end of her tunnel. The kicker is that she lives 5 houses away from me. Vancouver never looked so enticing (and it's a beautiful town anyway.....3,404 miles away). Ok, that covers the job, and mom, and Ernesto is just sitting there hovering over everything. On to me. This is what my ex-therapist would call a downward spiral. I get frustrated about something, but then I get angry at myself for being frustrated, and it just snowballs from there. As I mentioned, starting yesterday I've had the hurricane butterflies. Beyond that, we were at Lowe's buying extra gas cans, and I seemed to have an anxiety attack. I realized it while it was happening, and I told myself that no good would come of the anxiety, but that didn't help. I tried to shrug it off, but it stuck with me. We spent most of the rest of the afternoon yesterday strapping down the boat, putting away loose articles under the house, etc. I finally just gave up and told Chris I was done, and he accepted it. He's used to my moods and can maneuver around them pretty well. So I cleaned up and we went out to dinner, and I relaxed a little, but I still didn't feel right, and haven't felt right today either. I wish I could deal with these situations with a little equanimity. I get so agitated and all the little things start to bother me, and it all contributes to the downward spiral. Hehe, one of these days I'll post about my experience in group therapy, and I'll reference this post, because after typing all this out, I feel a little better. I feel optimistic that the spiral has changed direction. Anyway, that's the status of my pendulum. Thanks for listening. I will be working Tuesday and Wednesday, assuming we have a network connection, but I'll try to take some time and play Eve post another blog entry.