overload

So, I’ve been having stress dreams. It’s not so surprising, really. I’ve been working ‘round the clock for the last few weeks, lots of late nights and not much down time. In addition, all the extra time spent working (a special convention project that I was asked to contract for) has completely derailed me from all the good habits I’ve been cultivating since Lent. Don’t get me wrong, I can get back on the good-living train, but it has seriously pissed me off that I was thrown off the tracks. With all the extra stressors it’s no great surprise that I’m having stress dreams.

Now, I don’t know about you, but my stress dreams usually come in two varieties: the ones that are just extensions of the things causing all the stress to begin with, and the “classic” stress dreams. The former freak me out because I wake up at two a.m. worried that this hasn’t been done or that that was done wrong, but I find them to be totally normal and fairly easy to deal with. Go to work and see where things stand, then it’s dealt with. Of the “classic” stress dreams, I’ve long been prone to dreaming that all of my teeth fall out. I’ve had several versions of this dream over the years and it’s always super creepy and takes me a couple of days to come down off of. I have a very clear, dream-based sense memory of each tooth coming loose in my mouth, usually followed by the very specific feeling of spitting them out. Gross, right? Sometimes they all fall out all at once and sometimes it’s one at a time, one after another. Trust me, there is no better version of this dream. However, over the years I’ve grown – somewhat – accustomed to the dreams and can usually realize that they are dreams as I’m having them.

Recently, just before Pentecost, I, for the first time, had the classic “undressed in public” dream. I’ve heard about this all my life, but I haven’t ever had it before. I dreamed that I was in the south transept of the Cathedral during a major service at which I’m supposed to be a chalicer. In the dream, I’m so tired and spaced out that I suddenly realize communion is almost finished and I haven’t ever moved from my seat. Not only have I screwed up, but I’ve created a situation where other people are having to scramble to cover for me. I get up and begin walking toward mid-nave to apologize to the vergers and see if there’s anything I can do to help fix the problem I’ve caused. About halfway to my intended destination I suddenly realize I DON’T HAVE ANY PANTS ON and make a quick about face and head for one of the side chapels. As I’m going up the steps into the chapel (ass toward the congregation), I pass one of my co-workers and hiss, “Why didn’t you tell me I don’t have any pants on?!” To which she responds, “We thought you knew.”

It’s okay, you can laugh at my pain. It’s only dream pain and I laughed when I told the same co-worker about the dream the following day. At which point she tells me, “Yeah, that probably would be my response.” Great. If I ever do lose it and start showing up for church only half-dressed it’s unlikely anyone will tell me because they’ll just assume I’ve made a daring fashion choice. This realization does nothing to alleviate the stress, let me tell you.

In the meantime, here I am working lots of extra hours on the Big Project. Allow me to interject at this point that while, yes, I am complaining about having a lot of work, it is in no way lost on me that a lack of work is a major crisis point for lots and lots o people at the moment. Most of my stress dreams have been the easier to deal with work-related sort. The panic about them is straightforward. Sometimes I just boot up my computer in the middle of the night, or the early morning hours, and check my e-mail to look for answers. Other times, I call my vendors at eight in the morning or send a text message late in the evening to check where things stand. As a last resort, I go in to work earlier than usual, or on the weekends, just to make sure everything is as it should be. But, I’m stressed out and not sleeping well, nor eating as well as I should, and hardly getting out to play much at all. Can someone reassure me that the sun still exists?

In fact, I was so tired that I made it casual Tuesday this week. Exhausted and unable to come up with any sort of rational reason why I needed to wear office clothes to work, I decided to go into the office in jeans and sandals. I didn’t have any meetings Tuesday, why really did I need to wear grown up clothes? It was, of course, then inevitable that Tuesday was the day I ended up having an interview with the FBI. Yes, the freakin’ Federal Bureau of Investigation. Completely wacked out from sleep deprivation and dressed in baggy jeans and a blouse that I hadn’t bothered to iron, I got ushered in to speak with an agent because I was the only one who would admit to having worked with Mitch Feinberg, who has applied for a position with the State Department. (The better part of this story is that his name is NOT Mitch Feinberg, but, although Mitch has been sucking up to the bosses with tremendous enthusiasm, the executive who came looking for anyone who could speak with the Fibbies regarding Mitch repeatedly got his name wrong—and he reports directly to her.) So, there I am being presented with the agent’s credentials just the way the do on TV, but I think in my exhausted haze I stared at them a little too long. Then I handed the little leather wallet with the plastic window back to him and said, “I feel like I should give you something now.” I proceeded to answer his questions as best I could, dancing diplomatically around the tricky ones. I have no first hand knowledge of Mitch’s penchant for dancing topless in gay bars, his pattern of dating foreign nationals, or what the hell he does on his trips to South America. And, yes, while I am aware that in the wake of the last round of Cathedral layoffs he purchased a new BMW, I have no idea whether or not he lives within his means. I am not aware of any history of drug use or mental illness, but I do know that he sings. The FBI agent asked me if I’d ever actually heard him sing? Absolutely honest response, “Yes.” Is he any good? Now, I have no idea why the quality of Mitch’s singing would have any impact on his background check for an overseas post with the federal government, but I wasn’t going to attempt to roadblock the FBI. Yes, he is good. As is his brother, they both sing in the opera chorus. Their mother sings also, they do a little annual recital in Virginia. Yeah, I got real chatty with the FBI about Mitch’s singing. I’m helpful that way. And freakin’ exhausted.

So, it caught me a little off guard Tuesday night to have a stress dream unlike any of my previous ones. In this dream I came face to face with a former beau whom I haven’t seen in ages, one I haven’t even thought about in quite a while. If it had involved the FBI I could have made sense of it, but an old boyfriend? Really?! I woke up depressed and tired and angry with someone I haven’t seen in forever BEACAUSE OF WHAT HE DID IN A DREAM. I totally get that this is irrational, but it continues to bother me. Even days later, I’m still upset with him and trying to figure out if the elements of the dream that so upset me actually upset me, or if it’s all just a big pool of stressed out emotional garbage that doesn’t mean anything more than I need to get some sleep.

So Wednesday I turned the corner on the Big Project, and Thursday I was able to go home at a normal hour for the first time in weeks. I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to buy fresh fruit because I had completely run out. I spent twenty minutes in the store and came back out to find my battery had died. Yeah. Just what I needed. Seriously, it could have been so much worse than it was. It was daylight, and I was three blocks from home, and a freaking shuttle bus would take me free of charge from the grocery store directly to the front door of my building if I needed it to. Had this happened two days earlier at ten p.m. in a sketchy part of town it would have been so much more difficult. So, after a few attempts to see if one of my local pals could help me out, I prevailed upon the kindness of a total stranger to get a jump. She was a very sweet Georgetown student, but we eventually figured out that the battery of her macho SUV wasn’t putting out enough juice to jump my little Honda’s battery. Mall security had by that point come along to help and brought around a sedan and jumped it very quickly. Despite all the horror stories, strangers can sometimes be good people. Sure enough, my battery was dead again by morning, but I anticipated that and planned to take it in to the garage Saturday morning.

Stella and I have a standing Saturday morning brunch date and this week we were going to meet up and window shop all the new luxury stores that have opened up in the district between her home and mine. This was my suggestion last week and I was really looking forward to it. I called the garage Friday evening to make sure I wouldn’t have any problem bringing in my car on Saturday morning. It would take less than an hour to install the new battery and then I would go home and walk over to meet Stella at ten. I took the car in (after getting one of the maintenance guys in my building to jump it) and it died just as I pulled into the driveway of the shop at eight-thirty a.m. I went next door to the drug store to kill time until my car was ready. Can anyone explain why CVS has a Kama-Sutra Weekender Kit on clearance 50%off? When the mechanic hadn’t called by nine-fifteen I got a little nervous about our plans and Stella and I came up with a contingency arrangement. She came and got me, and then we headed north and found a place to have breakfast. Just as I ordered an egg-white omelet, the mechanic called. The $150 charge I had expected for the battery and an oil change was going to be sooooo much more. New alternator, new belts, new brake pads, soooooo much more. We talked about what needed to be done immediately and what I could put off a couple of months. He held firm about what really needed to be done now and came down to a price that was (barely) within my range.

Stella and I had a yummy breakfast (and got the hard-sell to “come back soon” (what can I say, we’re cute and we smile a lot)), then we went to the mall to kill time. I’m not much of a mall-person, but it was raining buckets and I needed distraction. We wandered through the stores with an arresting fixation on shopping for accessories. Not that I was spending any money, mind you, I had just agreed to give all my liquid assets to the guy fixing my car. But I did a mighty fine job of encouraging Stella to spend and every dime was a balm upon my stressed-out, beleaguered soul. The best sales staffs in the stores we went into were at Bloomingdale’s and the Coach boutique. Correct me if I’m wrong, Stella. She now has some fab new pieces to accessorize her life. I’m jealous. She makes mall shopping tons of fun. She’s also a great friend because when she took me to pick up my car, she stuck around until I’d made sure that everything was going to work out – that the car would start and the plastic would clear. She even checked in on me an hour later as the panic of having released all of my cash to a grease monkey, while not knowing when I would get paid for the Big Project, began to sink in. She then berated me for not having gotten a written contract for the Big Project. Like I said, she’s a great friend.

After checking my accounts online and assuring myself that everything really would clear, I placed a pre-emptive Father’s Day call. We had a nice chat and I told him what I was up to and proceeded to get almost hysterical on the phone with him about my finances. Like I said, the charge is going to clear my account. The car is running much better now (I hadn’t realized how rough it had gotten). And I anticipate a sizeable bit coming in from the Big Project. However, I got increasingly panicky as I talked with him on the phone. I think all the stress I’d been carrying just hit the breaking point. I could hear myself talking faster and faster and hear the pitch of my voice getting higher and higher and I finally just caved and asked if I could borrow some money for a couple of months. It could be that I get paid very quickly once the work on the Big Project is all complete, but we’ve still got some proofing to do, and there’s one day they are going to attempt “paperless” (but I’m anticipating being prevailed upon to put in some hours on it). The length of time between my bank account being emptied and the new influx of cash refilling it suddenly seemed to be a black unknown stretching into eternity. I felt pathetic and ridiculous succumbing to the cliché of borrowing from my parents, but I also knew in that moment I wasn’t going to sleep at all until I had things under control again. I’ve been so relaxed and happy the last few months—clear of debt, able to pay all my bills without worrying about juggling the checkbook, finally able to begin saving again—and in one moment I had gone from stable and secure to on the brink of a complete disaster. I leave it to you to figure out if I’m talking emotionally or financially, because I don’t know that I can see a difference anymore.

He agreed, by the way. He’ll front me some money and I’ll pay him back as soon as I can. I don’t like debt. It drives me crazy. It’s the constant stressor that follows me everywhere. I keep reading about how this is exactly the kind of situation that spins people out of control. First the car breaks down, then they get sick (oh my god, what if all my teeth fall out?!), then they lose their jobs (because the car is unreliable and they can’t get to work on time and the illness leeches away all their energy). Once they lose their jobs, the debt grows exponentially and then they lose their homes. Next thing you know I’m walking around church naked. God, I really shouldn’t have watched ten minutes of Oprah talking about people living in tent cities! I mean, I’d already read about tent cities, but I should know by now that ten minutes of Oprah can completely skew one’s world view.

Breathe.

Really. Everything is fine. I’ve got a job. I’ve got more money coming in. I’ve got a short-term family loan to help me sleep at night. My car is repaired and I’m not extended beyond my ability to repay. I’m just a little overloaded.