I have come to understand that it is not the big things in life that are ultimately the most stressful. Despite the horror and grief over things like marriage breakdown, losing our home, our job, the kids, there are other situations that we must somehow survive stoically, every day of our lives.
Just as a broken leg or severed limb hurt like a mofo for a certain period of time, eventually mega-stressful life events heal over. We are not the same, we are altered forever, but we do heal.
What can never heal are all the little things in life that irritate us down to our very marrow every single day, but which we cannot change and we cannot escape from. Drip, drip, drip. Poke, poke, poke. Pinch, pinch, pinch. No matter how many times we endure these things, we just have to turn around and weather them all over again.
Washing the clothes
What’s for dinner
Crumbs on the floor
Listening to drivel
Putting the dishes away
Picking up kids craft supplies
Hair removal / decoration
Doing girls’ hair
Removing dead flowers from vases
Homework that isn’t even yours
Getting the groceries in
Mowing the lawn
Brushing your teeth
Washing the bed linen
Filing reports
Listening to kids practicing their instruments
Getting out of bed in the morning
Every now and then it all gets too much and we shout to the heavens, “That’s it, I can’t take it any more” and we have a major meltdown and wail and cry and despair about how horrendous all these awful things are. How tortured we feel, how bereft. We fall asleep in the foetal position, our mind a grey blank, sobbing gently.
And then we wake up and do it all over again.
They went and replaced humans in industry in so many areas but here we are, no factory conveyor belt to speak of. Where’s my button to push to get my dinner tablet? Even The Jetsons had one of those and they were around in the sixties.
Forget pioneering space travel, the most important thing they can possibly do for the human race would be to invent a way to escape the bloody monotony of it all.
What little thing stresses you out the most?