My stomach's in knots.

That was basically the theme of my entire weekend. And I attribute it to the end of Spring Break and the beginning of Spring Quarter, or to use a euphemism, "Extremely Fun Quarter". That's not to say that Spring Quarter won't be fun, but it comes at a price, and looking at the calendar, I might just have to give up my sanity.

All this stuff basically hit me at Samahang's Spring retreat in San Francisco. Honestly, I was not prepared to return to my responsibilities with Samahang. I had something during Break that I had not had for 10 weeks; time to relax, time for deep reflection, and time for a really good night's rest, and I was not ready to go back. So when we got together and put our calendar together, including responsibilities for hiring, programming, SPCN, and knowing that I had CRC responsibilities that were not listed, my stomach was sent twisting and turning the entire weekend, internally worrying about how we were going to get through all this madness. You could say this retreat was the "Oh Shit, it's Spring" retreat. Time will tell which tasks this quarter are necessary to serve our general membership and which are just self-inflicted stress bombs.

Board also got a chance to bond Saturday night, but I opted out for sleep. It was one of those things that I wasn't sure if my decision was one I regret. I did miss an excellent opportunity to bond with folks who need to be my closest allies, but in the exhausted and stressed state I was in, how comfortable would I really have been in that space, especially knowing that Sunday we still had agenda items and a long drive back to LA?

In the end, going to sleep probably was the best thing for me, but it reminded me of issues I have with opening up my vulnerabilities to other people. As willing as I am to share my past personal struggles, I'm not as willing to share the personal struggles I have now. Mostly, it's an issue of articulation. With my personal history, I've had a chance to process those events and map my emotional duress in a logical pattern (i.e. I can explain in a logical way the emotional crap I went through), and so when I give my woe-was-me stories, it comes in a nice package ready for your intellectual processing (ex: entry for Tuesday, March 30th). But when I go through emotional duress now, I'm whacked out, and I'm still struggling to find the information to explain the crap I'm in. You'd think that if I were smart, I would talk to someone to help pick my brain for clues. But I don't. 'Cuz I'm screwed up that way.

OK, maybe that was a little harsh on myself, but I still have this thing called "My Pride", that I'm still trying to swallow. I'm uncomfortable going up to someone and sounding like a lunatic because I don't have enough pieces to put together the puzzle that is my emotional state. And I feel like this pride is still stuck in my throat, and I'm trying to skip the chewing, and devour this thing whole, as fast as possible. Remember how I said I was "moderate and regular"? Another euphemism.

So maybe smaller bites of pride, and chipping away at these walls I've built around myself (as opposed to using some demolitions and blasting them down) would be the best strategy. I'm already working on my honesty when I tell passers-by how I'm doing (none of this "I'm OK" crap when I'm not), but what more do you think I should do (or what I should tell folks so they can support me)? I leave the answers to you, especially the SPEAR counselors. =D