I don’t know why, but October is always a crazy month for me. Maybe it’s because I have 2 anniversaries, 2-3 birthday parties, Halloween, and the Halloween activities such as Trunk or Treat and school parties. The fact that is starts to get dark early and is often still barely dawn when I get up doesn’t help. Add to that the regular litany of extracurricular activities and housework, and it’s quite a load.
And then I decided to run for the local school board.
So now, in addition to the normal October madness, I am in the final two weeks of my campaign. Just the other day I spent 2 hours canvassing in my neighborhood to get the word out. 16,000 steps for the day. My legs still haven’t recovered.
All this is to say that I have not had time to think up a properly satisfying blog post for this week. So I am giving myself a break and just letting it go.
The Hectic Time of Year—CoronaLife Day 579
For a lot of people, the Christmas/New Year’s season is their crazy season. While that has its own stresses, I find this time of year, from mid-October to usually sometime in November more stressful.
Halloween, in turn, involves many tangential activities. Pumpkin-picking, corn mazes, costume parties, trunk or treats, hayrides, and the local bonfire, not to mention trick or treating on Halloween itself. The costume must be bought or made, probably starting no later than the beginning of October, if there is anything you need shipped.
I mentioned her birthday is close to Halloween. Well, you can forget having a birthday party anywhere near her actual birth date—there are too many other things going on (see above). So we usually have it in November. One year, it was the first weekend in December!
Just preparing for and doing all these things is hectic enough, but for those of us who are not naturally social beings, it can be a lot of people-time, too. In this Covid era, it comes with new stressors as well, especially after a year of limited social activity. My daughter greatly missed all these things last year, and is ecstatic they are back this year.
Which brings me to why I am always super-stressed at this time of year. Because it is also cold and flu (and now Covid) season and these things fly around school like crazy. I always hold my breath from now until whenever all these activities are over, praying that she stays healthy. I don’t want her to miss anything she loves, especially not this year.
I know it is a bit silly to worry over something I cannot control, but that is life with anxiety disorder. And so I will spend the next 5 weeks crossing my fingers and counting down the days.
Then I will take a few deep breaths and start my Christmas shopping.