Tis the Season...to be Stressed Out

My right shoulder hurts. Badly. My hand, too -it stings. I've got a blister on my foot, my stomach aches, and I feel like crying.

Is this some rare disease? The cluster of symptoms certainly doesn't seem consistent with any ailment I've heard of so...oh wait...I know what it is.

It's the holidays. The shoulder pain is from lugging my work bag, laptop and gym duffle on the same side, while I simultaneously carried bags from an assortment of stores in my left hand to balance myself out (hence the burning palm. My fingers actually turned white - I am quickly becomingdrained of not only money, but blood, too.) The blister is from hoofing it along Michigan Avenue in heels that are sold with a promise of being "like walking on air," yet these mock-croc pumps are decidedly mock-comfortable. I have a sneaing suspicion the stomach pains are from the four snack-sized Butterfingers I've downed between 9am and 3pm - in addition to the staff pizza party, where we gorged as if we'd never seen dough, sauce and cheese combined before.

As for the crying? Oh, let me name the reasons.

In the past week, I have found myself either on the verge of tears or simply overflowing with them for reasons ranging from a pregnant friend who gave birth to a lovely little girl to waiting in line at the slowest line ever to purchase a frigging package of batteries to thinking about a friend of my family who is dying far too young from cancer to - get this -welling up at the end of afootball movie on an airplane when the underdog scored the winning touchdown. (That last one made my husband cry - it's taken him a decade to teach me what a down evenis.)

Don't think the ridiculous divergence in tear-jerkers is lost on me; some of these deserve tears, be they of sadness or happiness. But others, I believe, are basically my body's way of responding to the stress of the season. There is so much to do, and so little time to do it.We want to go to parties and cook food at the shelter and make sure we use up our Health Savings Accounts. We need to stuff our liquids and gels in a small Ziplock bag so we don't get molested by security. We have shopping to do, endless checklists piling up, cards to mail out, long lines to deal with, evaluations at work; we're dodging those nasty flu viruses floating around, fielding calls from charities and blood banks ("Yes, I want to donate...yes, I'm on antibiotics...no, you may not ask what for!"), have family coming in from out of town. Most importantly, we're confronting the realization that yet another year has passed and perhaps we haven't come as far as we'd hoped in 2006.

Perhaps all the hustling and bustling - the buying of lavish gifts, the giving to the poor, the tension that so quickly boils over as we wait more than three minutes in line for a purchase - is a subconscious reaction to our unfinished list of resolutions from Dec. 31 of last year. Have we been exercising more? Have we been nicer to our spouse? Did we start mentoring a child/finish our all-American novel/stick to our once-a-month self breast exam? More likely then not, these well-intended goals were kept for a month or so...and then life got in the way. The rainy days of March turned into the steamy nights of July and now, in the blink of a Palm Pilot, Santa Claus is on every corner, ringing his bell for spare change. That clanging is like an alarm, screaming "YOU DIDN'T TAKE YOGA LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD! YOU DITCHED THERAPY!YOU DIDN'T CALL YOUR PARENTS ENOUGH...AND THEY'RE THE REASON YOU'RE HERE!"

My suggestion (and I promise to start practicing what I blog): The next time you feel yourself boiling over with emotion this Christmas/Hannukah/you name it season - the next time you feel guilty for declining a friend's holiday party because you'd rather stay home and watch Friends reruns - the next time you start beating yourself up for eating too many greasy potato latkes or drinking too many cups of eggnog - the next time you feel your blood begin to roilbecause the department store clerk is scanning items with the speed of drying nail polish - remember: We're all only human. Stop and take a deep breath.After all, it's the holidays.