I recently read Tina’s post on Carrots n Cake about how her colitis troubles seem to be exacerbated by stress. She went on a vacation and all of her symptoms disappeared for that time.

I don’t have colitis, but I’ve always had digestive trouble.  Now that I’m pregnant that trouble is exacerbated… and I’m sure stress doesn’t help.  The trouble is, I don’t know how to get relief from my stress.  EVERYTHING is stress to me.

• Daily life is stressful with work, maintaining a home, trying to prep meals for a husband who doesn’t like anything…
• Work is stressful for me because I kind of hate not having any co-workers around.*
• Being pregnant is stressful, because my feelings toward this are all over the place all day long.
• Taking a vacation is stressful because I have to plan it all
• Going on a vacation is stressful because there are deadlines for travel, planning activities that I hope my husband** will enjoy and then when he doesn’t seem to respond I freak out and assume I’ve ruined it all
• Going on trips where there are large amounts of family around are even more stressful for me.
• Doing a “staycation” is stressful because I feel like a failure if we don’t have things planned or if we’re just bumming around the house.

Somehow, I make it very hard to be me. Some of it is just hard-wired in my brain (nature). Some of it comes from how I was raised (nurture) and the way chemicals in my brain interpreted those lessons.

But this week, I’m going to try to relax. No over-planning (just the bare minimum, so we can actually make our connections) and no real agenda. My brain and body need to de-stress BIG TIME.

*Don’t get me wrong, being able to telecommute is a gift… but it’s also very hard.

** My husband used to give me more feedback on activities he thought were fun, but I swear… his job has sucked that life out of him. Being a CPA in a public firm is no joke people… especially January-May.