synergy

Stress

Sometime last week, I hit my limit for construction. Ever since then, my stress levels have been high and my tolerance for chaos low. I'm constantly tense and am apt to cry for minimal reasons.

Thankfully, we are heading to Cancun on Thursday morning for a nice break. Actually, it's to attend the wedding of a friend of mine, but there's the added benefit of staying at a luxury resort and getting away from a house filled with contractors. I'm also anxious to see how K handles the trip to Mexico. This will determine whether she'll be up for trips to London/England and Panama next year, in addition to the domestic traveling we do.

K's response to the stress has been to watch movies. Her therapist encourages to hide when she's no longer able to take the household circumstances. But that leaves me feeling a bit lonely.

This weekend, I spent quite a bit of time working on the dining room. The drywall has been finished, so I primed the drywall and began the repair work on the cracks and holes in the plaster. It's not that I want to do the work, though I don't mind too much. Rather, I want the room finished. The fastest way I know to finish the room is to do it myself. I'm not doing everything. For example, I'm not taking down all the picture rail to replace it, as I probably should. Instead, I'm doing as much as I can to make it look good quickly.

Once the dining room is painted, we can move the large oriental rugs back into the living room and dining room. The bookcases can be moved into the room and we can get much of the excess crap out of the living room. Basically, we will begin to reclaim our house.

Despite my stress, K and I are doing well. I did have a temper tantrum on Saturday night, when she tried to stay home five minutes before we were to leave for an evening out. I was pissed. Normally, I would have dealt with it better, but I couldn't take it. I could tell she was enraged, partially because the plumber had been working in the basement and messed with the plumbing all day, making it impossible to shower, do laundry or anything else. Fortunately, we worked it out together and she came out.

K is also extremely stressed. She's telling the table refinisher, who's taken about 4 times the amount of time he initially told me, that he needs to be done on Wednesday or we will finish the table ourselves. She's also very anxious to work on the dining room and have it completed. She worked with me a bit over the weekend. The funny part is that she's the one, who is better at these tasks.

We are continuing to communicate well and rely on each other for support. Even healthy couples struggle with home renovations and the stress of them. I talked to her about my loneliness as I'm working on things. She's going to try and do more with me, but her energy is being sapped by the state of the house. The chaos upstairs is exacerbated by the chaos in the basement, which will continue for another 6-8 weeks. Hopefully, painting the dining room will make us feel as if we've accomplished something and it will be easier to wait as the basement is completed.

Despite the stress, she's continuing to do well and work. I'm hoping that a few days in a resort with nothing to do will work miracles on us both. I'm thinking of scheduling my first-ever pedicure and maybe a nice seaweed wrap or something of the sort. They also serve rum drinks directly to the lounge chairs. K plans on reading and watching movies. Our intention is to do as little as possible. I'm really starting to look forward to this trip.

posted by synergy @ 1:41 PM