You're never out of reach.

Stress.

Anxiety.

Those are two words I would use to describe my mental state lately. I have been feeling quite stressed out. And the built up stress turns into anxiety about whatever it is in the future that I'm stressing out about. Ugh. I really don't like it and I wish I could just calm down and breathe. I am appreciative of the times when my mind is completely distracted by my surroundings because then I am free from the grip the stress has on my life. What's worse, is that I have a very hard time vocalizing this. For two reasons. Number one, I'm so stressed out that I'd rather not discuss it because then I'm like oh let's just go over this AGAIN. Number two, I want to forget about it and avoid it rather then open up and talk about it. Put the two together and I am internally avoiding the whole situation which does nothing in order to help me.

So I'm feeling a little stressed out with school which really isn't that bad but it kind of is. I need to find a partner asap and I'm just feeling pressure because the time is running low. I want to just get the project out of the way but I need someone to work with first. This stressor should be over within a few days and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon when I get to class.

The other reason I'm feeling stressed? Yesterday I found out that my mom has skin cancer. It's squamous cell carcinoma, which apparently isn't as bad as melanoma because that is more deadly. Anyway, she told me it's not the worse skin cancer to have and the treatment is typically outpatient done at the doctors office. The survival rate is very high at 95%. So I guess if she were to have to have skin cancer this is a good one to have (but really, is there a "good" cancer?). She's not scared so she said I shouldn't be scared. But I am a little worried. I'm hung up on the word cancer. Cancer. It's such an awful word and has terrible associations. When someone is diagnosed with cancer you usually don't brush it off your shoulder like, so how 'bout them yankees? No. Panic and fear set in and you're like, crap is this the end? What's the success rate? What are my treatment options? Am I going to DIE? I feel like I shouldn't take this lightly. I feel like we should be getting on treatment asap. Not just casually waiting until the insurance will approve it and the doctor is back from vacation. Seriously? Shouldn't we be like, get in, get out and HURRY. I don't know how to feel about it because my experience with cancer is not positive. And I feel like "good" cancer is an oxymoron. There is no such thing as "good" cancer.

So today I read the story about the Syro-Phonecian woman in the Bible. She had a daughter who was being possessed by demons and she heard that Jesus was in town. Interestingly, this woman was a Gentile and Jesus was in a Gentile town. She found Jesus and asked Him to come heal her daughter. He basically ignored her for some time. And then finally after her repeated begging He told her that the children's bread shouldn't be fed to the dogs. And she replied that the dogs get to eat the crumbs off the floor. And then He praised her for her faith and told her that her daughter was healed. And basically, she believed in Jesus and what He could do that she was persistent in asking for His healing. And that's how we're supposed to treat our prayer lives. We should be persistent in prayers because God will answer our prayers. So that's what I'm trying to do right now. I've prayed numerous times today. I'm praying for school. I'm praying for my mom.

I'm praying for peace.

beautiful now.

So I am super analytical. I analyze people, situations, the future, relationships, etc. way too much. Probably too much for my own good. It's a little ridiculous. But at the same time, I'm quite fond of myself.

I'm also a thinker. I guess this goes hand in hand with being analytical. I think and process things so much as well. But I do think about all sorts of things all the time.

I'm also very internal. I keep everything in. I bottle it all up until I have to let it all go. I hate this side of me. I fight my own battles inside my mind because I don't open my mouth. I ruminate. I analyze everything over and over and over and over again inside. I hold onto things and have the hardest time letting them go. Especially emotions. Because the emotions are so real to me. They have affected me in one way or another. And I don't know how to let them go because just letting them roll off my back doesn't allow for the proper burial. So instead, I hold on to them and somewhere down the road I'll let them go. And somewhere down the road, all at once, I'll unload my bucket of emotions. And hope that I can properly deal with the issues. But once I face them I bring back all of the emotions that went along with them. Which sometimes means that this unloading can become quite messy and complicated because not everything will make sense and hardly anything sounds related.

Being an internal type of person also means that I carry a great amount of stress and anxiety with me. I stress myself out thinking about things. And then my stress produces anxiety. And then I'm so stressed I can't eat or talk to people about what I'm stressed about because it causes even more stress. And in the rare occasion that I do tell someone about what's going on, its like word vomit. I don't want everything to come up but it does. And I can't stop myself. I just try to give them a glimpse of what's going and then--oh what's this? Word vomit! And now I'm giving away more information than I intended. And now I've got word vomit going on and I'm starting to get worried that they're getting annoyed or bored with what I'm saying. But I can't stop myself from talking.

Being analytical, a thinker, and internal all go together so well. But it sucks to suffer from all three. And it's difficult to break the cycle of them. Because if I could with the snap of my fingers I would.

I guess that's something I need to work on.