Under pressure.  Underlying pressure.  Two very different things.

I have felt a lot of underlying pressure lately.  Ok, my entire life.  The pressure to live up to some hidden and righteous expectation.  The pressure that things should go exactly as I see them.  But that’s just not how life works out.

Visualizing my ideal situation and how it will turn out, I try to piece together several elements that I feel I can control in order to ensure the outcome of the ideal situation.  The ideal situation for me, not necessarily everyone else.  They get factored in along the way, and I attempt to foresee what outcome will benefit all of us at least a little bit.  When that doesn’t go according to plan, as is often the case, I feel failure.  The underlying pressure bubbles up and then I’m just under pressure completely.

I do this all to myself.

No one ever said I had to make things ideal.  No one even knows the ideal, do we?  Think about it: take a moment in your life and think about how you expected it to turn out.  When I planned to move to Montana, I decided to give a 4 week notice to my employer.  I planned this to happen at the same time I filed my tax return.  My thought was I would then have 4 weeks of paychecks and a nice refund to set me up in Montana.  It seemed ideal.

What I didn’t factor in was my employer, who let me go after 2 weeks due to filling my position and having me train my replacement.  Not ideal.

The alternative was that they didn’t fight me on unemployment.  Whether it was right or not, I filed, and therefore secured a bit more stability until I began my temp job in Montana that I only found once I moved out there.

It wasn’t how I expected things to go.  When my employer let me go early, I was devastated.  I had no clue how I could move to Montana on 2 weeks less pay.  I remember having all of my items packed up into my parents truck and my car, sleeping on my sister’s couch the night before the big move, not quite sure that my apartment was going to be as good, and having no job secured.  I was terrified.  But it worked out.  I landed a temp job that suited my skills.  My self employment gig took off and my apartment was cute, quiet and secure.  It turned out to be ideal, but getting there was so much different than I imagined.

Most of my life has been that way.  Planning a wedding in 2 months and not having the funds to send off all the immigration paperwork leaving Kevin & I living on 1 income with 2 sets of bills coming in.  Cancer and that whole death thing.  Going back to school later than I wanted to.  Cars failing me my back breaking,.  There have been many things on this journey that were far from ideal.

But it has turned out pretty swell.  And I’m happy, and alive.

So I have all this underlying pressure constantly bubbling up out of the expectation of my ideal life.  Brenda, what the hell is an ideal life?  Because it certainly is never what you’re going to expect it to be; good or bad.  It’s going to go the way it was planned for you, not the way you planned.

I think boilpoint has been reached.  It’s time to take me off the stove and let me cool down.  I think I need to get to a nice room temperature and see what just happens.  *deep breathe*  It’s time to stop being my own pressure cooker.