Stress Fatigue

 

Stress wears on a body.  We have had a year of pandemic stress on top of whatever else we are dealing with and the stress hormones flood our systems.  We are in a constant state of alertness and alarm.  And we get tired.  Fatigued.  

I went through a trough of energy in August and pulled myself out of it by setting up the Sunday Seminar Series.  It was a tonic.  At the same time I continued to work on my health, physical and mental, and felt better, overall, than I had for a while.

Winter arrived and after a long, grey, dreary summer, we entered a long, grey, dreary winter.

In January I started to slump again.  It has been more difficult to maintain a positive attitude, in no small part due to the continuing uncertainty of the pandemic and political situations.  And I started a mentoring group for my students.  

Word got out and I started another group for people outside of the Olds program.  Yesterday I set up a 3rd as the 2nd group became quite large.

Doing the seminar series and the study groups has meant I have had to learn new-to-me technology.  Learning anything new is tiring, mentally.  I had to work out what I was willing to do.  And what I wasn't.  I had to set boundaries and limits on how much time I was going to spend on these programs.

On the physical front, my massage therapist encourages me to continue with the exercises as prescribed and assures me I am making good progress.  And I know that is correct, but I am so far from where I was before the cancer returned in 2017 it feels too big a hill to climb.  I'm so grateful I made the decision to close my business in 2019 or I'd have the additional stress of trying to keep said business afloat.

I tire of posting encouraging things on FB about staying home, wearing a mask, etc.  If people haven't gotten the message by now, they never will.  I grieve for those people losing a loved one, or even their health, dealing with Long Covid.  It could have been so different if we'd just learned from history and the flu pandemic in 1918-19.  And yet, here we are.

I find myself once again in a trough, feeling tired and achy, looking out the window at the grey dreariness that seems to be becoming the norm these days.

There are still many things I would like to do, places to go, people to see.  We have to continue to navigate what is happening now so that we can get to that stage of safely traveling again.

In the meantime I have a warp I really like on the loom.  I've woven with this combination before and am pretty confident that I will really like the results after wet finishing.  I like the colour combination, and more importantly, I am using up stash.  The thicker yarns get used up faster but I'm getting low on combinations that I will find pleasing so am having to really stretch in terms of my choices.

In between sessions at the loom, I continue to work on the Power Point presentations.  I started the study groups with only a vague idea of what I could do but my vision has begun to take more solid form.  And by the end of the year I will have about 12 Power Point presentations that could be used, individually or in combination, for on line guild programs/seminars/mini-workshops.  This should allow me to continue to teach even if I cannot travel in person.

And that is not a bad thing.

In the meantime we continue to stay home as much as possible, wear a mask when we go out, not gather in person.

And rest when the fatigue becomes too great.