Stress is so overrated

You can imagine the amount of shenanigans I've gotten up to since Easter (I blame some people named BRIAN STREET for that godawful Hungarian brew this past Friday), but even with all of the socializing I do, work is still work and I am definitely tired these days.

This week marks my fourth week in Spanish language training and, while some people are invigorated by learning to think in a second (or third, or fourth...) language, I find it utterly exhausting.  At the end of the day, my brain is so weary from all that internal translating, all I want to do is curl up with a good book or a watch a movie.

However, that is never really the case.  Now that Maggie is here, I have all kinds of responsibilities - like getting her not to pee on the carpet.

Here is a typical day:
5:30AM - wake up, wash face, brush teeth, throw on gym clothes, grab MAG-DELICIOUS! and go for a run
6:30AM - yoga, while trying to persuade Maggie that I do NOT want to be French kissed (nasty!) or to have a 30-lb dog sitting on my head
7:00AM - scarf down my oatmeal (yes, I eat it every day) then shower, get dressed
7:45AM - check for important emails
7:50AM - run out door to catch ride to work
8:45AM - arrive at work, refresh cup of tea, check work email, print out Argentina news to read throughout the day
9:00AM to 10:00AM - language lab
10:05AM to NOON - Spanish class
12:05PM to 2:15PM - logistics for move to Argentina (emails, diplomatic passport, forms, more emails), more time in the language lab, administrative stuff like timesheets and travel vouchers, 20-30 minutes to sit outside in the sun and eat lunch while enjoying my colleagues' conversation
2:15PM-4:15PM - Spanish class
4:15PM-5:00PM - more logistics, errands, emails and the like
6:00PM - Home!  Quick change into more comfy clothing, free MAG-DELICIOUS! from her crate and run out the door before she has a chance to poop on something, dog park
7:00ishPM - Usually pretending to do homework and more logistics for move, but normally spacing out on my personal email and Facebook, while trying to decompress
8:00PM-11:00PM - studying Spanish, work administration, prepping for next day, if I'm lucky I remember to eat
11ishPM - BED.  Again, if I am lucky.  Wash, rinse, repeat...

So, since I'm not the kind of girl whose picture is under the words "spontaneous" or "care-free" in the dictionary, you can see how the stress involved in this kind of schedule might wear a girl down.  Especially since I'm always stressed about what I haven't yet done or what should go on the to-do list for tomorrow.  In fact, I worry so much that I start waking myself up in my sleep around 3 to 4:30AM every day.  I actually stress that my alarm clock (which has not failed to go off EVER) is f$%&ing with me and I have somehow missed my 5:30AM wake-up call, so I wake myself up enough that I actually check the time.  Yeah, that's right, people, you heard me: I wake myself up to reassure myself that I can still sleep.  WTF?!!

On top of all of this, I am maximizing my time with my new colleagues/friends, since goodness knows we will all never again be in the same place at the same time at any point during our careers (we're like Clark Kent and Superman that way).  Which is why I found myself at a house party this past Friday night at around 9:30PM.  It is also why I left said house party after midnight to dance at a gay club with approximately 15 of the party-goers who lasted that long.  And it is also why I was at Ben's Chili Bowl at 3AM with the only other 2 people who were still left standing after all that.  (I am not sure I can actually blame the cosmos for my walking Maggie at 4AM, forgetting to bring the house key, and then waking my landlord up at 5AM to get the spare, but I digress...)

I guess you could say that I am in the middle of a big change in my life, where I have recently exited a long-(long-long-long-)term relationship and no longer have the kind of support and reassurance and comfort one gets from that, while simultaneously embarking on a brand-new career that is, by its very nature, very dynamic and ever-changing.  I have also tried to break some of my past habits, particularly those that prevent me from making spontaneous choices and enjoying the moment (I am, after all, every inch the judging introvert, as evidenced by my Myers-Briggs results).  Needless to say, my life has been very hectic, stressful, joyful, and rushed since I got off that plane from Mexico in February.  And I feel like I haven't quite caught my breath.

Which is why, to be honest, I don't have a proper answer when people say to me, "You're going to Buenos Aires?  That's great!  Are you psyched???"  I am actually too tired, too in the weeds, too much in the details, and too busy being spontaneous to even begin to think about an eventuality that won't even happen for two and a half more months.  Who has time to be excited for the expectation of Argentina?   Not me, my friends, not me.

So this is why, when my friend Andrew texted me on Saturday to say he was coming in from NYC (via Philly) to visit, I couldn't resist.  It is also why, when we were out for a drink at my neighborhood haunt Mandu and my friend Chasity texted to see what I was up to, I couldn't resist inviting her to join us.  And so we staid until closing at midnight, and then wandered up to some unknown bar in Adam's Morgan to have a few more drinks and dance like fools to the songs playing on the radio.  Because that is what you do when you're trying to enjoy the here and the now, and make the most of the time you have with the people you care about, stress be damned!  You stay up way past your bedtime, find yourself a hangover by Sunday morning, and just muddle on through to another day, another work week, another round of Spanish homework.

And occassionally you sit back on your heels for a moment, pause, and say, "Shit.  That was awesome."