Daily affirmations of a word mercenary
Maintaining Sanity
27Jul2004 Filed under: WeddingHere are the techniques I’m using to help me maintain sanity as the wedding inches closer. (Dude: it’s next weekend!)
1. No caffeine
I cut all caffeine out of my life three weeks ago. I’m already in a state of chronic excitement, and the last thing I needed was some chemically-enhanced excitement. After the first week of no caffeine, I decided to try a cup of black tea. It was a relaxing Sunday morning, I’d had a super mellow weekend, so why not try a little cuppa. I spent the following 4 hours at a fever pitch, shuffling To Do lists and gasping. Moral of the story: no caffeine until the post-wedding slump kicks in.
2. Lysine
When I’m really stressed out, I have this utterly charming capacity for getting enormous oozing cold sores. Perhaps the best example of this was when I left for NYC to attend the Columbia Publishing Course. First day of class, I had the most massive nasty oozing cold sore on my mouth. This, combined with the peeling sunburn I had on my forehead made me into a oozing, peeling, glistening facial leper. No joke: the blue blood classmate assigned to sit next to me took one look at my face, and changed seats. Thankfully, I have learned from experience that L-Lysine helps cold sores heal faster, and so I’ve been taking 1600 milligrams of Lysine daily for the last couple weeks in hopes of staving off the inevitable stress-induced festering facial wound.
3. Valerian tea at night
Valerian root is stuff that valium seeks to synthasize. It makes you sleeeeeepy. When I find that it’s midnight and I’m not ready to go to bed, I’ll knock back a cup of valerian tea and (usually) fall right asleep. I can’t abide by sleep-loss, so valerian has been a life-saver.
4. The help of friends
I’m starting to run out of ways to say “Thank You” to all the people helping me with this wedding. Seriously. EVERYONE IS HELPING. It’s magical. Almost every issue that comes up, someone steps in to say they’ll handle it. It’s amazing and wonderful and makes me love the community of people around me even more than I already did, which was already a lot. THANK YOU EVERYONE!
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2 Responses to “Maintaining Sanity”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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sarah
July 27th, 2004 at 10:27 am
man, you are sooo lucky! i am also getting married soon (the 2nd weekend in august), but its been a nightmare! be thankful you have so much help and support.
good luck to you both!
yara
July 27th, 2004 at 1:27 pm
so here is my little unsolicited possibly not helpful advice:
when you start to feel like you’re going to throw up all over the dress and the floor of wherever it is you are just before the wedding, just remember that how much you loved him yesterday is how much you’ll love him tomorrow and that wearing a pretty dress and new jewelry doesn’t change anything, like some sort of wonder twin powers activate. at least, that’s what my mom told me as i was contemplating heaving what little i ate for breakfast all over the lobby floor of the Mirage. (it worked.)