Stress

I’ve stopped speaking in full sentences choosing, instead, to complete the majority of my sentences in the confines of my head. Great for me, not so helpful for whoever I’m talking to.

This is apparently my new way of dealing with stress. While some people eat and others drink I, being the non-conformist, play with my sentences. Nice.

I’m sure this wouldn’t be quite as large an issue if I spoke more to myself and less to the outside world.

I’ve had a fascination with weddings since I was a little girl. I have always quite liked the idea of getting married. Not necessarily because I want to spend the rest of my life with another person. No, it’s about the actually wedding - the dress, the flowers and the cake. The groom, I’m sad to say, was not a fixture in any of my wedding dreams.

I’m sure I’m not alone. Actually, given the multi-billion dollar worldwide wedding industry, I know I’m not alone.

Every wedding I’ve been to, without exception, is an expression of some little girl’s dream.  I don’t know too many men who’ve spent their childhoods hoping and wishing that, when then get married, they can wear a top hat and tails. Or spend 3 months learning how to dance (the side step doesn’t count as a wedding dance move). No those are definitely from the bride’s dream-pool.

I just worry that, in our little-girl desire to realize our ‘wedding dream’, we suck all the magic out of, what should be, a supremely special day. When everything is primped and preened to max there’s no personality left in it.

Many of us never factored another person into our dream. It’s our wedding, our dress, our flowers and our cake. This thinking is great, apart from the fact that you can’t marry yourself.  So maybe we’re supposed to expand on our dream, make room in it for our partner? Maybe we’re supposed to share the special day?

Don’t you think life just seems to be getting more and more serious? South African stress levels must be going through the stress glass ceiling. If we are not worrying about our own politics we are worrying about that busty old Republican SP. I think that we as a nation are, in our own way, addicted to stress. Is there a Stressaholics Anonymous?

But what is really so bad about stress? What is not to like? That hard-to-beat feeling alive vibe is totally moreish. Never mind the fast beating heart, potential palpitations, hair loss, eye twitches and reduced concentration.  Pish-posh those are not real side effects; at least not for the die-hard stress addicts.
We, as a nation, seem to enjoy nothing more than taking other people’s issues on board. It is somewhat ridiculous but many of us believe our hours of stressing, over the US Elections, will somehow stop them from voting for a Republican (again). If the great citizens of America refuse to help themselves then there is nothing our nations combined stressing is going to do. The same applies to the politics closer to home, but lets not even go there.

There is such a fine line between being concerned and being stressed. Concern you can leave at the front door while stress completely takes over your life. Also eye twitches, as a side effect, can be quite debilitating. Stress, ladies and gentlemen, eats you from the inside out leaving behind an opinionated, not terribly interesting, shell.