Where is the silver lining when you need it?

Sometimes the light's all shining on me, other times I can barely see. The Dead are playing tonight at the Warfield (they are rocking for Obama) but I won't be there, the show was sold out already when I found out about it. I don't even want to think about it - seeing them would be so much fun and would take my mind of so much crap, but, no. Too many stressful things have happened lately, and I'm feeling it, my body is reacting with anxiety and insomnia, and my girlfriend saw me get so f*cking emotional that she's decided to give me some time & space until I sort out my priorities. I already blogged about my Opa passing away, but I still cry everytime I think about it. Maybe it's because I live so far away that I could not go to the funeral and I don't have closure. When I don't think about it, I'm fine, but when I do, I get so sad. I'm even afraid of talking to my grandma, my Oma, who now has to go to a home. Another thing I can't do anything about, except for calling her, and then we are both crying.

My schedule this semester is one day class on Tuesday and Thursday. I used to take 2 or 3 classes, but since I've started my own business, the business has grown, and now taking just one eats up a huge chunk of billable time. Over the holidays, work slowed down a lot, and I was actually worried. But I got a new client to fill in for the ones who had no work for me. The good, yet bad, thing is that he has way more work for me than the others, and now my old clients are coming back and I'm completely overwhelmed. I had to tell everyone last week that I was not going to finish by the time I thought I would, which made me feel like a huge flake. And it makes me worry that they will go find someone else to do their drafting. The good thing is that the new clients pays me at my higher rate and that he is very organized. But his projects also have serious deadlines. That's in contrast to an old client who is a nice guy, but disorganized, flakes often, and pays me on the last day possible. I don't know how to choose - go with the old, established client, or the new one? And if I go with the new one, how do I fire the old one? And how will his cousin feel about that, who is my favorite client of all?

Anway, the new guy gave me so much work that I ended up skipping my class, which is not good. I'm taking the class with the only purpose of producing more art work for my portfolio so I can apply to grad school with more confidence. I started the business so I could go to school, so school should be the number one priority. I can't just squeeze out art, I need to feel relaxed and enjoy the project for me to be creative. When I'm worried about work, that's impossible.

On top of that, the doctor who did the aspiration called me. When you get a call from a doctor about lab results, that's not good. He said that some of the cells he took from the lump are slightly abnormal, and that he recommends I have it 'excised'. So tomorrow I have an appointmet with a breast surgeon, to get another opinion. I know I don't have breast cancer, because the mammogram was negative, but I don't want abnormal cells to turn into breast cancer either. So I'm not superworried about it, but it does weigh on my mind. And it's going to take up time, time that I need for work and school.

The week before last, my girl had a bunch of horrible days at her work. She's a social worker, so with her work, actual people are involved which I imagine is even more stressful than mine - I mean, what's worse, trying to find poor & handicapped people places to live in SF, or working with people's additions and remodels? I didn't hear her say that she wanted me to call her at night, I still don't remember, and I so regret that, I can't express how much. I want to be there to support her. She does the same for me. We worked through that, she's managing ok, and now I just keep breaking down. She saw me last week, when I was crying. I was so emotional that everything just set me off again - my laundry lady offering me to stay late so I could pick up my wash'n'fold, for example. When my life sucks, and random people are nice to me, that makes me cry, I don't know why. I think it scared her, me being so emotional that she couldn't help me.

On top of all that, of course, there are groceries, cleaning my apartment so it's presentable to clients, dealing with my old cat who throws up in the middle of the night, laundry, pet store, it never ends. I mean, with all this going on, I can't think about putting him to sleep. I just can't.

So this weekend, my girl told me she felt that I got too stressed out trying to get everything done when I know she is coming over. So she decided to stay away until I figure out my priorities. I know she's trying to help and it's what I need to do. She says maybe one day a week is all we should be together, instead of all weekend and long and evening dates during the week. And next weekend, she wants to see an old friend who's in town and she might not have time to see me at all. But seeing her is the one thing I truly want to do. That's why I would blow off school and work - being with her feels so good and makes me so happy I just don't care - but then school and work just blow up in my face later. How can I choose?

So I'm being more disciplined about work and school - I get up earlier, I'm at the computer earlier, I've told the new guy I couldn't do his next big project but smaller projects might be ok, and I had a 12 hour Sunday yesterday - caught up on work and made progress on school, and I'll have next weekend to devote to work and school, too. I'm not going to go out to listen to bluegrass during the week anymore. Still going to run and do yoga for stress relief, though. I hope this will work. I hope I can be adult and responsible about it all, because loosing her, that would be the worst of all.