Today at work, I expressed a sentiment to a co-worker about needing a break from the stresses of life. She responded in a somewhat joking manner, “You’re not married and you don’t have kids. What do you have to be stressed about?”
Now, as I said, her tone suggested that she was at least partially joking, and I know she did not mean anything negative by it. But in my head, my thought process immediately ran down the litany:
Thousands of dollars of school loan debt
A car that will very soon be broken down if I don’t acquire the money to fix it
A new position at work that is proving to be far more difficult and fast-paced than I had previously imagined
Getting my entire life settled into a new routine after having just moved to a new apartment
Trying to find new priorities and meaning in life after the thing that I had centered my life around came crashing down around me
Having to live paycheck to paycheck to keep up with bills and rent
Managing to find the money to pay back the people that have helped me stay afloat recently
Keeping all of these things in balance so that I can continue to live independently and not have to move back to RI
Yeah, I definitely have a fuckload of things to be stressed about.
PSA to all of my followers: Don’t trivialize the struggles that other people are undergoing. Just because they’re not the same as yours doesn’t mean that they are invalid. There are many more things in life that can induce stress besides a spouse and children.
