Daily Archives: Dec 18, 2020

Last week was brutal for me. I had so many things that just all converged at the same time and just made me super tense and stressed.  I could actually feel my veins constricting. I could feel the knots in my stomach.  I could feel the breathlessness, the restlessness, the nervousness. I had a pounding headache the whole week.  It was so visceral.  It was awful.

Anyway, what could be so bad you ask.  Well as my dad so bluntly put it while I was having a mini panic attack on the phone to him, none of these things was life or death, so why was I overreacting? Because that is what I do. Duh. I had my tae kwon do grading. Tae kwon do is my favourite thing in the world. It is so much more to me than a hobby and one day when I find the right words to describe it, I will tell you all about it in detail. But for now, all you need to know is that I love it. But I also hate it. Because I love it so much. Are you following? Yes, I know it’s all very confusing and contradictory. Now you know how I feel. But because I am so heavily invested in tae kwon do and it’s so much more than a hobby to me, I take it super seriously.  I am very average at tae kwon do.  I am not some gifted martial artist. I must work seriously hard to even be ok at it. I am always scared of injuring myself because I am both old and clumsy.  This is not a good combo for anything, let alone a martial artist. So, it was my grading, and I am proud to say I have made it to blue belt.  This is halfway to black belt. But I was super stressed. I am old and don’t remember a lot of things easily and for tae kwon do you have to learn a lot of theory and Korean terminology.  As I am a super nerd, I take studying very seriously. But studying at my age is not easy. And I am literally learning a new language. 

On top of the stress of tae kwon do, I also had a few horrible things I had to sort out at work. You know that thing that none of you think I do? My day job? It all got fixed in the end, but it involved so much emotional trauma, and may I add admin (Errand Paralysis ; People Are Dumb )(and you all know how I feel about admin) that I genuinely thought I would keel over dealing with it all.  Luckily, I didn’t, and I’m here to tell the tale. 

This was also the week that I migrated the old blog to here and even though I hired somebody amazing to do it, it still involved supervision and participation from my end. And seeing as I don’t understand technology, I genuinely had no idea what I was weighing in on. It was just super stressful trying to figure it all out. I felt like a serious dumb ass. I felt like one of those 70-year-old parents who have to ask their kid to set up their iPad. My mum always does this to me and I get so frustrated with it all, but now I have nothing but sympathy.  Tech is way too confusing. I sometimes ask my 8-year-old to help me with Zoom.  How embarrassing.

So yes, this was my week. Nothing life or death, but all stressful, nonetheless. But here I am. I have somehow survived it all. I think I have taken about 3 years off my life span as a result of this week, but if I only live to be 172 years old, as opposed to 175, it will be ok. Hopefully by that age I will have my black belt.