Stress is a Six Letter Word

Yes it is and I have been suffering from high levels of this six letter word. It seems like it just will not go away. It follows me around whispering, “I am going to get you.” I use my weapons of wine, chocolate, the rosary and playing the SIMS, but I lose every time. Taking an afternoon nap with my cat doesn’t squash it either.

Stress sneaks up on me when it is time to pay the bills. It snickers when my husband complains that the dishes were not done correctly. It laughs when Bear throws a tantrum because he can’t decide what he wants. That nasty six letter word won’t leave me alone when I don’t make enough money with my businesses to give myself a paycheck at the end of the week.

I can’t seem to win the battle. I try and try every day, but I always lose. My faith is supposed to help me win the war on stress. I am losing confidence in that too.

I didn’t mean for this article to turn into a rant, but I guess it is. Here I am back at writing in the Talbert Zoo after over a year. Why did I return to this blog?

Maybe I am hopeful that writing more will help me win my battle against stress. Maybe, just maybe, things will get better. Maybe I can finally feel good about myself and my accomplishments and not feel like a business failure anymore. We are not making enough money to pay all of our bills and the mortgage is due soon. I feel like it is my fault.

I should be the bread winner. After all, I run three websites, sell Avon, have published a book, and am a talented flutist. I should be on the top spot in Google for several keywords with my online magazine and have hundreds of thousands of readers and page views a month. I started that site nearly twelve years ago and I still feel like I failed.

I started selling AVON back in August and by now I should have at least 50 regular customers. I only have about 5 and they don’t order on every catalog. I even started a website for my Avon business but I am lucky if I get ten visitors to that site a day. I feel like a business failure again.

I studied music in college and flute under the direction of the late Dr. Robin Fellows. I play my flute at church on Sundays and always get complimented. I know God gifted me with musical talent. Several people know that I am willing to give private flute lessons but nobody has showed an interest. I have a sign in front of my yard advertising summer flute lessons. This is the third year I have put it out. I feel like a failure.

My two little boys started YouTube channels and I am their editor and business manager. I can’t seem to catch up with editing all the videos they made. I upload one every other week to their accounts. I feel like I should be doing more to help them succeed. They started their YouTube accounts back in December but they only have a couple of videos each. Monkey has 6 subscribers and Bear has 2. I have set aside Tuesdays to update their YouTube accounts. I wish I could spend more time on them. If my boys could make some money with YouTube it would really help us. I don’t want to fail them too.

Is writing this helping me win the battle against stress? I don’t know. If it doesn’t work should I play Sims or have a glass of wine instead? Sims – maybe, but 10am is a little too early for wine.