What's going on down there?

I spoke to a friend last week on the telephone. We do not talk frequently, but she keeps up with me via this blog (Thanks Spook!). As I told her about each mini-crisis and minor catastrophe that I have recently endured (we're talking a week stressful enough to bring on a case of hives!), she said, "Hm. From the looks of your blog, you were having LOTS of fun!"

And I WAS having fun. But...

BUT!

Swestie has a lot-o-crap going on in her life these days. In the past, I would've "coped" with the crap by delving deeply into each emotional issue of my own and those around me, becoming so heavily immersed in people's drama that I could barely rush to the surface for a breath every now and then. But because I'm a The-Glass-Is-Half-Full-kind-of-girl, I didn't want to bring people down. So I would plaster a silly smile under my cheeks and giggle nervously much more than was necessary. This effectively tamped my feelings down creating one wound-up chick-a-dee, wandering through life with her shoulders around her ears.

That was then.

Now, the older, wiser Swestie has lots of ways of coping, including:

• not giving up exercising just because l am "busy"
• taking time for myself... reading a novel, blogging, knitting, Facebooking, meditaing, making a little photo video, yoga... whatever suits me in the moment...
• not allowing myself to get sucked into the drama (THIS IS HUGE FOR ME.)
• asking for help when I need it, instead of expecting people to know that I need it
• giving myself a break if all of the mundanities aren't always contained

Sparing you the sticky gore of my personal life, all I can say is that for the last month or so, I've had so many things happen to and around me, and I've been so detached that I practically feel like I'm hovering over my own life. The tenor of my mood is like a melancholy Joni MItchell tune played on some scratchy old vinyl... when the record needle gets to the end, it picks itself up... click....whirrrr... pop!scratch... and goes back to the beginning... over and over again. It isn't unpleasant at all.

In summary I've done a LOT of exercising, asking for help, giving myself a break and practicing detachment for the last eight weeks or so. The co-dependent in me screams to get more involved, but the part of me that is already stressed to the point of illness begs to remain lovingly indifferent. And the strangest part, co-dependent part aside, I feel completely fine (hives are gone...).

Is this okay? For this moment it is. And are we ever guaranteed more than that anyway?