Stress Mess

I've got to say that this has been one of the most stressful summers of my life. For me, stressful and summer are oxymoronic, for even when I'm on my feet for hours and hours working in a coffee shop and living at home, or working at a sort of wacky non-profit, I still manage to find time to read, run, garden, relax, craft, play music, and engage in debauchery (debauchery = things that are legal now that I am 21/friend time/staying up too late for my own good for a variety of reasons). And while I've still read a bunch of book, taken a ton of naps, and been running more times than I had in the previous 3 months, and even engaged in enough debauchery to remind me why it needs to be a once-a-week thing, and not an every-night thing, it all feels a little forced and honestly, half-assed. My garden is a wreck. I haven't played banjo since I taught myself "Sail Away Ladies." The "quilt" I'm "working" on? Joke! I guess that this is a long way of saying that I'm a little disappointed in myself, and the way I've let my summer job eat my life.

I'm working as a community organizer for the STAY Project (Stay Together Appalachian Youth!), a network of young people from Central Appalachia who want to stay in their home communities and are working to make their home communities the inclusive, sustainable, healthy places that they want to live in as adults. I worked for STAY in Kentucky when I took a semester off of school, however, there I was working as a grant-writer/master planner in an environment that was a lot more laid back. This is work that I really care about, but the concept of organizing in my home community is really scary and feels sort of forced to me. I mean, I could throw a kick-ass potluck/jam at my house, but all of a sudden, when I'm asked to throw a STAY Potluck/Jam, I freak out and forget that I'm a fabulous hostess. My job has been stressing me out so much that I have stressed myself sick, not once, but twice this summer. Swollen tonsils, feverish, no appetite, etc. When I'm not interested in eating, you know that something's really wrong, and I feel like that apart from the occasional days when I feel like I have a tape worm, I'm just not very interested in food.

I didn't want to turn this post into a woe-is-me, life is so hard post, but I feel like I come home from work, eat something, toss and turn all night thinking about it, and repeat the next day. I've tried reminding myself that it's just a job, and that it's definitely what I make it, but I feel like I'm working in an environment where that attitude is not the norm. The environment I'm working in is really inspiring, energetic, and conducive to productivity, but this type of environment tends to turn me into a stress mess.

Ugh, I hate that this post is basically me wallowing in self-pity and complaining about how stressed I am (I have a job! Free housing! Lots of amazing colleagues!), but writing this out is making me realize that I need to either blog more (because my summer has been much more than being stressed out 24/7) or drastically change my attitude towards the work I'm doing. Oh the beauty of self-discovery through writing.