Stress, Stress, and more Stress!

As most of you know, I am in the process of moving my classroom, Well, it's nine days until school starts and my room is still not ready. In fact,  the blue wall just got a third coat of paint. I had the joy (this is sacrasm in case you missed it) of watching it go on the wall. I am moving today anyway. Before I leave school today, I will have all of my stuff in that room.

 I am determined.

 I will probably have a major meltdown also.

I have been in full avoidance mode of all the stress that is circling me trying to find a place to land. It's birds that are picking little chunks out of me every time I let them get close. I think last night the next to last bird landed. Today's bird may be the one that finishes me off. The good thing for me is writing is my way of dealing with the birds. It helps me banish them back to the trees. 

The room kicked off my summer of stress, but last week I got news that I did not want to hear. I know the woman I had always considered my extra grandma was nearing the end of her life. She has been suffering from dementia, not eating, the normal signals of the end nearing, but as humans we always manage to avoid thinking about these things. Last week the word cancer reared its ugly head. She has it in her liver-a rather large tumor that has enveloped half of he liver- and in her lungs. There is no hope of treatment. I still managed to avoid the pain that comes with these pronouncements and shoved the thought to the back of my mind.  Last night, it came back full force.

The trigger for this was finding out that a friend's mom also has cancer. Seeing the pain that she is going through made it all but impossible to hide from mine. Mini-meltdown. The birds started landing. 

I realized that in a few short weeks I will probably be attending a funeral for a woman I love dearly. No more trips to the big house in the woods. No more stopping at every yard sale we see. No more being griped at because I said a bad word, and her lecturing me that it's simply not lady-like, that I should know better because I am better than that. 

I know that Monday, if the furniture is not moved to my new classroom, if I am two days from open house with a room that looks like a nuclear bomb was dropped, the last bird will come home to roost, and I will disolve away under all this stress and a fountain of tears.

Today is another mini-meltdown.

 But there is also that still small voice at the back of my mind that is saying "Why are you not letting me carry this load for you?" 

Today, I am ready to let You have part of this. Today, I am ready to lean on someone who is bigger than my stress. Today, I am giving this mess I call my life to God and leaning on Him again to carry me through all of this hurt and stress, because after all I am still His, and He still loves me.