Eggs, over-whelmed

I learned something this morning. The word “overwhelmed” is redundant.

How did this bit of knowledge come about, you may ask. That is easy. I am completely overwhelmed by life right now. It struck me as odd that my ability to handle incredible stress on a daily basis sometimes fails me.

I thought perhaps generally I am just “whelmed” and today I am over-whelmed. Because I am a geek, I looked up the word “whelmed” and found this “to subject to incapacitating emotional or mental stress…see overwhelm

If you are “whelmed”, you are already “over-whelmed” You don’t even need the “over”

This may not be news to any of you, but I lead a rather stressful life. In the almost 16 years that I have been Maggie’s mother I have learned to deal with the stress of caring for and worrying about her every minute of every day. As I have often said, 1000 individual things that would freak out most people have faded into the whole tapestry of raising Maggie.

In addition to Maggie and the challenges that being her mother presents, there are the other, “normal” stressors that all of us have. These seem to upset me most. Perhaps it is because I am so stressed dealing with Maggie that the everyday life stressors are exaggerated. Perhaps it is because I live on the edge and it does not take much to push me over, Perhaps I think I should be immune from these because I deal with the Maggie stress so well. Perhaps it is just life.

I know I am overwhelmed and as the GI Joe cartoon says, “knowing is half the battle” But what do you do when life is coming at you from all sides?

What I do is focus on something small and positive and remember that all day. It is an easy trick, that I think I always did, but one that became clear because of something my husband said to me when we were first dating.

We were both in law school, which is a stressful place. Aside from the rigorous academic expectations and the incredible amount of work, there is the social aspect. Law school is like being stuck at sleep away camp with 100 people who drive you crazy. For the first year and a half, you only see the people you go to school with and they are all under the exact same stress you are. It is nerve-wracking to say the least.

One morning, after at least a dozen attempts I successfully flipped two eggs using just a flick of the wrist. Prior to that attempt, I ruined many eggs trying to make the perfect over easy egg without using a spatula or anything. I don’t even like eggs over easy, but I wanted to know how to do this. I had done one egg occasionally, but never managed to do two without breaking them. It was a personal success that meant nothing to anyone but me.

I went to school flush with my little victory and walked into a class. Immediately some classmate said some annoying law schoolish thing and I deflated. Steve looked at me and said, “remember the eggs” and I smiled.

It still works, and those eggs were flipped in 1984.

My advice to you today…remember the eggs in your life. It will get you through days - or 26 years --of being whelmed, over or otherwise.