The Signs of Stress

I'm not going to lie. I almost forgot to write this post. Like I've forgotten to do a lot of things lately.

Sometimes you have a bad day. Or a bad month. And things get thrown to the side whether you like it or not.

August has been a terrible month. I'm keeping a positive attitude about it, but that's really just spit-shining a turd.

My mom looked at me the other day and said, "You know, Mike, you're really showing signs of stress." Then she pointed at my eye and said I'm blinking 3,245,987 times per minute.

That's not to say there aren't great things happening. Today I'm going to close on a house. It is not a big house, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be my house, and it most certainly is.

The path getting there has been insane and stressful. And losing daycare for my son two weeks before my school year started? I have a new vein in my forehead that I now call my DAYCARE VEIN.

A whole host of other personal and professional tomfoolery piled on, and all of a sudden I'm out of time for reading, writing, finishing copyedits, planning for my school year, and meaningful father experiences.

Oh, and my book was initially supposed to come out this month, but it won't for another year. So I'm kind of sad about that. It deserves a blog post of its own when the time is right. And Amazon still hasn't updated its listing.

My point -- besides tangential whining -- is that I'm learning how much the writing life relies on you keeping other affairs in order. You can't be productive and inspired when a million other tasks are weighing you down. Letting stress get to you has physical and emotional side effects. It's inevitable at times, but I'm really thinking I have to let go and convince myself the world around me will not fall to pieces if I take a break now and then.

Because that's a lot of freaking blinking.

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Mike Grosso is the author of I AM DRUMS, a debut contemporary middle grade for musicians of all ages. It is currently orphaned due to the closing of Egmont USA but is on its way to finding a new home. The Fall Fifteeners have been nice enough to let him hang out in the meantime.

You can visit Mike's website here or follow him on Twitter @mgrossoauthor.