On stress
As much as it pangs, stress is almost always silent. Maybe we cannot articulate or maybe we just don’t want to, but the monsters lurk nonetheless, and does therapy even work?
“Where do you feel it?”
I’m in therapy now, because that’s what you do when you lose a sense of control. It’s where you go when it hurts, but it hurts anyway. Adulthood will always surprise you.
At therapy, the therapist asks me this every time – “Tell me where the stress is” – and so I tell him it’s in my chest, to be a good student. He’s expecting me to simply express the ache, like what the tickle feels like when a lady bug’s legs meander their way up the back of my ankle and delight a pleasant afternoon picnic, or how cold and wet it might feel when a big raindrop plops onto my cheekbone and I intuitively blink and look up, as if the rain were to come from anywhere else. But it’s not tangible like that.
If it is, I’m lying about my chest anyway. It belongs there sometimes, if our hearts could truly harden enough to crumble and feel like we swallowed a boulder that’s now lodged in our ribs, but it’s more a fiery, sludgy, cement-like lava slowly slogging through every vein, and I’m lying horizontally enough for the pain to more like float and stagnate and make me heavy rather than flow as a river from my neck to my toes. It’s a numbness, too, as the weight succumbs, that begins in my forearms – causing my wrists to limp and my fingers to twitch – and continues as a cycling of fevered panic that energizes itself as it taps every bone, yanks and snaps on every end of every muscle and then somehow manages to manifest a needle and sew my skin to whatever floor I couldn’t seem to get myself up from in time. I could lay on that cold bathroom tile or warm laundry room rug or dirty garage floor concrete, making love to my suffering, till hunger or exhaustion interfered, and even then, I’d stay sewn and bare, his simple “location of stress” enjoying a meal instead.
One time, I sunk so depressingly into the bed on an otherwise sunny Friday afternoon, not being responsible or productive or pretending for anyone for once, and I imagined the wood planks that make up my roof falling down onto me and piercing me one by one, cutting through the exhausted chest cavity holding all the stress, denting into my one face, nailing me to the couch arm by arm, leg by leg, until the entire house and all the love we built fell messy into my lap, at last making tangible the pain I try to decipher now, with my therapist every Thursday at 9 a.m. There, now you see me bleeding here, here, and here. Don’t ask me where it lives, there is now red on both our fingertips.
But that didn’t actually happen, and whatever he’s asking me to seek and mitigate is nowhere to be found or described or molded for him to diagnose. It’s lurking eagerly beyond the both of us – nowhere near this ever familiar office painted in gray, just like every other healer’s office painted in the same gray that is the antithesis of help or healing. It’s thriving instead, invisible and untouchable, in all my tomorrows and in all my intangible thoughts still mustering, and it’s playing a winning game of catch-me-if-you-can.
“Yes, I think it’s my chest,” I say matter of factly once more.
And we spend the next 50 minutes imagining together what it’s like to lift that stress ball out of my chest and ask it to leave while I simultaneously, secretly, tighten the thread to the floor. Name it what suits you, but lurking monsters can live for days, and I am always the gracious host.
I left my first husband on a Friday, and that was the easy part. We even had lunch together and talked about the weather after we signed away a union that lasted for a little while.
But, oh, the pangs lingered. Not because my weakness robbed me of the broom to shoo it out, but because I was too lazy to shoo in the first place. Why am I so beholden to this attention? I lugged it around until it got ahold of me, and now I’m strapped to the couch (his in therapy and mine in my house caving in.)
Stress aches with its weight – a burden we cannot alone lift – yet it is almost always silent. Even if we do muster the energy or the courage to talk about it – to family or friends or, most often, the most distant person in your life so as to avoid judgment – it laughably isn’t even close to breaking the ice. This was my hidden talent.
“Everything is great! Fine, the kids are lovely, how are you?” Divert attention, be impeccable. Stress can only feast in private.
And so we find the most private environment other than the closed walls of our bathroom to break down alone, and we end up in therapy that is way too expensive, way too much gas money to get to once or twice a week, and, for me, I do my best to make conversation about him instead.
I knew his dog wasn’t well and the renovations to his backyard and which plants he preferred in his office, both at home and at work. (Different plants for different environments, I learned.)
I deflected enough that he was none the wiser and I was none the better. Maybe even worse? A weekly therapist visit in which we spent a good seven minutes of our fifty together having small talk was never going to cut it.
“How do you feel now?” he closes after another session wastes away.
“Better. Truly. Thank you, I’ll see you next week.”
Disney takeaways: Claustrophobia, nostalgia, and ice cream bars
Do your research, the rides are dark, and pay extra to skip the lines.
In October of 2023, my family and I enjoyed our first trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fl.
One does not come lightly to this decision. Perhaps, you could purchase a park ticket and show up, and the spectacle alone is enough to satisfy you. But, if you want to maximize this (potentially) once in a lifetime experience at the happiest place on earth, you’ve got your work cut out for you.
I actually memorized the maps of all four parks. Isn’t that embarassing to admit?
Tips & Takeaways:
I did (A LOT OF) research, and I never came across the alert of how enclosed the majority of rides would be. I was not prepared to meet my claustrophobia on this trip! Despite how happy and cheerful the rides were (or scary, depending), experiences are in deep, dark, narrow caves. Although there are bright lights as you see the impressive beauty and work that went into the experience, there are a lot of dark tunnels, with no discernment of direction or how you’d ever get out if you needed to, and this was very difficult for me. (Boys? Absolutely fine. Nothing phases them, not even the 65mph rides in Tomorrowland. How though?)
Speaking of anxiety, remember to pack the Xanax and Tylenol from the sheer stimulation of it all. It’s a lot!
I couldn’t imagine not having Genie+ / Lightning Lanes. This ensures you skip the lines for rides. Even though it is an extra $10-$25 cost per person per day, it’s a necessary add-on for me considering I didn’t want to spend as much money as we already did getting into the parks just to stand around the parks and wait while hot and impatient. We spent more to experience more in a day. You spend less to experience less in a day.
We packed our own refillable Hydro Flasks to avoid $12 bottles of water every hour, only to carry around heavy flasks with no forecasted refill stations in sight. What the heck?
key ice cream bars and Disney balloons were unnecessary but so nostalgic. I had a damn ice cream bar every day.
Epcot as a nice down day, and I was not prepared for that. There are fewer rides than Magic Kingdom but an enjoyable, casual stroll through so many different cultures with great food and drinks. We loved the crepes and champagne in France, the gelato in Italy, the performers and steamed buns in Japan, the Mariachi in Mexico, and Paddington in the UK. What a thoughtful and well designed park experience! Also an incredible aquarium at the end of the Nemo ride.
Characters do not simply walk around the parks, and this was a misconception for me. We did stand in line for Mickey and otherwise the parade in Magic Kingdom was a glorious 30 minutes waving to every single character there. I get emotional just thinking about this. When it’s all going well, no one is an adult here. We are all the giddy children. I swear I caught my husband skipping.
The employees through the entire Disney experience are impeccable. Can you imagine if we all showed up to work like that? Each of them are high energy and delightful. Everyone is waving, genuinely smiling, and happy to see you. I feel like I would tire of listening to Disney songs all day every day, but instead you see employees tapping to the omnipresent music even when no one is watching. A man was cleaning up kid vomit and singing along to “Tale as Old as Time.”
The characters are (expectedly) just the same. I appreciate their talents and efforts so much! There would be a (FED UP) mother trying to drag her two-year-old screaming daughter in an over-stuffed stroller across the infamous castle with the inevitable Cinderella or Olaf blowing her a kiss nearby. Ignore the tantrums! This is the happiest place on earth.
I wore Teva sandals the entire trip. We walked nearly 30 miles over four park days and never felt any pain. Kind of impressed!
Ross (age 6) wanted all the damn trinkets and toys. Purchasing a Disney gift card for the kids allows them to buy whatever the heck they want, so long as they knew whenever the gift card emptied, so too did their bags with toys they’ll never use again anyway. (This was a tip I received and wished I could have implemented. Instead, I bought 700 toys that are now piling up in his bedroom.)
Fanny packs for everyone was necessary for us. The boys ended up carrying around their Magic Bands (an alarming tracking wearable but seamless, useful tool at the parks) that kept falling off (we still lost two), their sunglasses and snacks, and Air Tags for our peace of mind. For me, I also had the easiest access to my beloved map and damn phone, which I had out constantly to check into rides, order Lightning Lanes, and mind the ride order of the day. It’s overwhelming, but it also helped our whole family have a seamless experience (I still managed to look up and well up over it all. It is enrapturing everywhere you look.)
Lastly, I never felt more like a MOM than I did on this trip. With the fanny pack and the schedule and the sunscreen and the coordinating and the sensible outfits, I felt old for like the first time ever, and I simply do not plan on getting old. You just kind of always think you’re going to be the cool mom, right? And this week, I was very uncool. But so happy. We are so lucky to have had such a special family experience!
(And nah, I don’t think we will go back anytime soon. Beach next time is so in order.)