When You're Not Strong...

Currently Listening to:

Lean On Me by Bill Withers

Stress. I hate it and try to eliminate it from my life. And yet if someone were to ask me, right now, what word best describes my life I'd have to say stress.

I cried last night for the first time in a long time. Not like the kind of crying you do when you read a nice letter you've received, not like the kind of weeping that The Notebook evokes, not like the kind of tears that drip down your face when you cut onions. I cried because I was so frustrated and agitated. There was a definite buildup that I should have seen coming but it's hard to see that everything is snowballing until it hits you.

First off, it was finals week. Finals are the creation of the devil with the sole purpose to make every hair on my head turn grey from anxiety. Okay, yeah, sure. It's preparing us for college (or whatever). But really? Really?! The last test of the semester, that is to determine my grade in the class, is going to be worth 50% of my grade? And...what's that? And it's also going to be the same week as six other huge tests that will ALSO determine my grade?! Oh. Okay. No sweat.

!!!

Really though, finals aren't that bad. I could handle that. Really.

But when you add in a basketball game in which I must go to for pep band-a double header, I might add-and SATs the next morning at a school far from where I live....things just get crazy. I won't go into details but here's basically what happened at the end of finals week Friday night at 9:30 p.m. when I'm STILL at school for band and need to wake up at 5:30 a.m. the next morning:

Ahhh!Sleep!SATs!CanIpleaseeeeeleavetwoquartersearlytogohomeandsleep?Teacherangry!Meangry!Agh!Stormout. ¹

So basically it was not good but I just needed to go home and get at least seven hours of sleep for the SAT. My teacher was upset that I asked to leave, and I understand why. But at the same time, I sacrifice a lot for band and I put up with a lot. Some teachers like to put stress on you to make you a tougher person, and I totally appreciate it. I would just appreciate it more if once in a while I'm allowed to put myself first. I rarely do, despite what he may think.

Stress. I'm so tired of feeling stressed.

That being said, there are much worse things we could be feeling than "stressed". I'd rather be stressed any day than be hungry, sick, scared, or hurt. I'd rather be stressed than devastated like the people in Haiti are. I'm disgusted with myself sometimes when it takes something so horrendous to turn me into an optimist. It shouldn't be that way. I'm pledging to start being more thankful and gracious and to not let myself get lazy in being appreciative.

Thank you,
-Haewon

¹: The reason the song is Lean On Me is because of what my friend said to me in the car when I was crying after having talked to my teacher. She commiserated with me and knew just what to say to make me not feel completely stupid and to make me laugh. She told me to go home, put on fuzzy pajamas, and have cookie and milk, doctor's orders! I'm so blessed to have a friend like her. We all need somebody to lean on.