I don't know about you but when I get stressed my body decides that the best way to let me know that I am stressed is for my lips to break out in multiple fever blisters. They don't come when I am actually experiencing the stress they come immediately following the stressful time ending: planning a wedding, taking the bar exam, juggling 10 different men. Apparently to my body, stress is stress.
I have realized recently that I like a certain amount of stress or tension in my life. For some, cliff diving, surfing or hang gliding give life an exciting edge. For me, I appear to just like to create drama where there really should be none. What I have come to lately is that what really stresses me out are events that require long term planning and logistics (see above). Moving, planning pretty much anything large and now, I can add dating to the list.
It also occurs to me that perhaps this is the only way that my body can get my attention. It needs to send up literal flares to get me to see that the time period just preceding this one was in fact stressful. I think this is because I largely ignore the myriad of other signs it sends me on a daily basis: the clenched jaw or fists, the tightness in my shoulders, nervous habit of chewing the inside of my lip. I do all of the above all of the time. And very rarely do I take any type of contrary action to release the stress that is locked into my body.
I am, by nature, an anxious person. I cover it up pretty well and am not particularly vocal about things that I find anxiety producing. I am able to do this because it appears that my body and I made a deal long ago that my body will keep the score.
How is this relevant to the man ban you ask?
Noticing how stress manifests itself in my body is something new for me. It is not something that I would have slowed down to see or feel before. I am only now able to make the connection that I find juggling so many relationships stressful. If you would have asked me like a week ago, if I thought that dating was stress inducing, I would have told you no. However, my body had a different answer.
I am hopeful that one day, I can integrate my emotions and where they reside in my body. It would be nice to be a fully integrated adult at some point. I am not sure that is possible for me but I will keep it as a goal just the same. For now, I guess I will just be grateful that I made the connection: that immediately on the heels of ending my over indulgence in being mired in the sea of online dating prospects, my body sent up several signals to let me know "Hey stupid, we are dying in here! Stop it!"
So with bodily confirmation, I take on day 3. Knowing myself (and I do) I also believe that my body sent these lip lovelies to keep me from backing down from my challenge. I mean who wants to date someone with fever blisters? Um, no one! I think my body sent them like a mob enforcer to usher me through this early time where I might easily slip back into bad habits and easy excuses for bad behavior. I guess just for today I will be grateful for fever blisters and not broken knee caps. "I hear you body. I get the message. Please do NOT send reinforcements! Tell Al I got the message!"
