Taking care of the first responder

I do a lot.

I do everything from making yogurt and cheese to felling, cutting, and splitting my own wood, literally keeping the home fires burning. I'm also furiously researching and writing articles for the web on forest gardening in the hopes that--one fine day--I might be able to pay a few bills or even (gasp!) the mortgage.

All this work is stressful. I am stressed that I don't have the time in my schedule to design and buy trees for the forest gardens I've been writing about, stressed that I haven't planned what to do with the vegetable garden out front, stressed that the vast majority of household maintenance and upkeep chores fall on my shoulders, stressed that my partner and I are trying to live on an income that pays only one-third of our bills, and, lying darkly underneath and as pernicious as a creeping cancer, I'm stressed that the world as all of us have known it is in the process of crashing down around our ears and I may not have time enough to prepare even though I see it coming.

I've been throwing myself at these issues whole-hog, every day, relentlessly. I often feel a caffeine-like buzz inside my body as my mind hops from "I have to" to "what about" to "how do I," a symptom of continually butting up against impossible challenges and obligations. I've been holding up OK so far, but yesterday I realized I can't do it all, no matter how important everything is. I've got to stop taking care of everything else and take care of me or eventually I'll go over the edge.

It occurred to me that in all of this I am a "first responder" when it comes to my life. There's this huge, life-threatening mess engulfing me, and I need to act like an ambulance EMT, who's first priority is to take care of themselves. (It sounds selfish, but a dead or injured EMT is of no use to anyone.) Sure, stocking food will take care of me in the long run, but you know what? I'll never last long enough to use it if I have an increasingly heavy emotional elephant sitting on my chest that may well crush me. It's time to take care of the first responder.

I'm not sure how to do that, except that I'm sure the first step is to back off and let go. Maybe take a half-day holiday now and then and allow myself to feel totally, refreshingly irresponsible in doing so. Have an adventure. Get lost in a snowy woods. Deliberately not learn something new. Visit an understanding mentor or friend. Play with a child, as a child. Draw a picture. Make a valentine.

The elephant can wait.