Due to construction work at my school I can’t do my usual, casual, end-of-school clean up. I must have everything done by this coming Friday. I planned on a marathon work week on Mother’s Day weekend, but I came down with the stomach flu. So this weekend I knew I would have to make up for lost time.
I got up early and was getting ready when I discovered that my bottle of silicone-based hair smoother-down glop had leaked all over the cabinet, and everything in it. I had a melt-down. A volcanic melt-down. A break-your-heart melt-down. It was too much. I had one those horrible crying jags where you can’t stop sobbing and you have to gasp for breath. Haven’t had one of those in a long, long time. It was awful. The mess was awful. The gloppy stuff was like cleaning up greasy glue. I cried and gasped, and Gary kept trying to help, poor guy.
Years ago I read that crying releases a hormone that relieves stress. Once I finished my marathon cry and got the cabinet cleaned up and cleaned out, I felt a lot better. The cabinet had needed a roto-rootering anyway and looked pretty spiffy. By the time I got to school I was in a ruthless cleaning and tossing out mode. I actually got a lot done.
My daughter, Alexandra, has always been a merciless tosser. She is not especially sentimental about things and used to help me in my cleaning by being my cheerleader. Maybe that was part of my crying jag. But she would have been proud of me today, and I was proud of me, and, by gosh, I will be ready for vacation on the day school ends. That will be a first in nearly thirty years of teaching.
2 comments:
I do think melt downs are go once in awhile. Sometimes when so many things are building up you just wish you could have melt down just so you can get on with your life. Hope you are doing better now.
Again, thanks for the empathy. I needed that. I have been fine and focused ever since. I guess I needed the purge.
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