Stress Factories.

Ever just feel frustrated? Ever just want to throw something or say what you really want to say?

Perhaps more significant, ever done it?

So many things can cause that little feeling, the one that begins in the perimeter of your neurons, tickling up tubes in tides of hypersensitive electrodes. Nudging and niggling their way into the hipocampus, collecting most persistently and inconveniently in a reservoir of irritation. It bubbles and brews, belching steaming aggression into your nose like sulphur from my grandparent's shower head. Before you know it, it's evidently steamed up your vision because suddenly you become inexplicably blind to anything or anyone around you. You and your feelings are all that exist. The really terrible thing is those feelings are not friendly or forthcoming at all. It'll be at least an hour until they even start to make sense and in the meantime, sense is teetering toward extinction. You open your mouth as wave after wave of electrodes fill your facial cavities--you are going to electrocute someone. Soon.

Ah, stress....

Note to self, avoid these things in light of your currently limbo-like, subtly unstable mood.

You won't have any friends, any more.

I googled "Things that cause stress" and pages of websites popped up, all boasting the "Top 10s," "Top 7's," and so on, each listing the usual, predictable issues: finances, work, family, relationships, worries, etc.

One site listed everything categorically-like, perhaps some organization will help the problem. Interestingly enough, that relationships stuff topped the charts for "stressful events:" divorce, separation, marriage, and engagement. Hmm. Telling chronology.

Environmental changes can apparently add to the whole nasty business as well: too much heat, too cold, too much work, too noisy. "Too" being the quantifier of choice.

And not to be neglected, not that they'll let you, PEOPLE. Guess who?

Hard Bosses, Noisy Children, People Who Annoy You, and People Who Remind You of Something Unpleasant. This list especially intrigues me.

Just for fun, I decided to see what happened when I grouped some of these stressors together...Kind of a catharthis type of exercise, maybe we'll all feel better when we see we don't have it this bad...

1. I'm engaged to the man of my dreams, though I wish he would stop that little habit of gargling his soup, but while I'm fantasizing about that, I mean about being engaged, I get 23 calls from work reminding me of 23 inconsequential and innocuous things I've left undone and I realize tomorrow will be a great opportunity to leave at least 23 more such loose ends lying around just to trip up and annoy all these brownosers who really annoy me.

2. I'm getting married today and the only thing that could ruin it would be seeing my bipolar boss stealing my gifts at the reception or menstrating. Me that is, my boss is male. And I'm not. Oh...my...dear.

3. After all of that, or maybe because of all of that, I'm getting a divorce and I'm sweating...not because of the divorce, but because it's too flipping hot outside. I feel like punching some noisy children in the face.

But back to that list of PEOPLE FACTORS. These are really quite entertaining because we've all dealt with emphatic employers, crying or cussing children (airplanes are the notoriously haunted areas), annoying awkward people, and yes, even those who remind us of what we really don't like. At all.

And let's be honest, doesn't it just sound exhilarating to walk calmly up to someone, I mean right up to them, face them directly, giving them a winning smile, wait for their expectant, though more hesitant one in return, and say confidently, "You really remind me of something unpleasant." *Sigh*

Life seems to hold few control factors--with so many variables, the art of keeping one's cool is one to truly master, against all odds. I'm still in kindergarden. I just hope I don't look too silly squeezing into that toddler regalia when the time to move up finally comes. Till then, let us be careful in our circumstantial and community combinations--it's hard to evacuate a planet.