Overwhelmed

So, yeah. Remember that time when I said I couldn't believe how relaxed I was and how well everything was going? OH MY GOD did all that go flying out the window the last couple of days! Talk about a torrent of tears of exhaustion. Yesterday I was so freaked out that things weren't going to get done, and so mad at myself for underestimating just how long everything was going to take, that I literally did cry angry tears of exhaustion and sheer helplessness. It reminded me a lot of my trip to Kauai - I had to admit to myself that this is too much and I simply cannot do it all. But in this case I can't just get on an airplane to fix the problem. Much like going into labor, there's no way out but to go forward. Painfully, exhaustingly forward.

I guess I just forgot how awful the last week is - how the emails and orders come in every few minutes, the phone rings off the hook, the last minute paperwork piles up, and forget doing any packing or organizing for the weekend - you can't even pee, eat lunch, or take a sip of water. It is fucking relentless. And guess what? All those people who wait until the last second to sign up or have issues at the last minute? They are the same type of people who can't figure out how to get their PayPal accounts working, have no credit cards, keep breaking up with dance partners, never check their spam folders, and swear up and down they signed up for things they didn't. In other words - these people suck!

If it's so bad why am I taking the time to write this? Well, I am finally feeling somewhat on top of things, plan on working late into the night, and I need to take a frigging break to complain about all this, since god knows I can't post this on Facebook!

I had to call in a sitter to watch Bobby all day yesterday; I cannot believe I actually thought I wouldn't need this, or that I could even go to a play date all day! Was I nuts? There's no getting around the fact that this time of year, for just a week or so, the kids just need to disappear. That's a dark thing to say, but it's true. I simply cannot take care of them and work like this. It's physically impossible.

So going forward, now what? Three things - more delegating, more babysitting, and more working ahead of time to leave these final days for customer service exclusively. 

There's lots of unpleasantness brewing, too - tons of ugly controversy over the wording and format of my contests; I keep discovering mistakes I've made, such as on the printed schedules that I then had to re-do to the cost of $300 which also means tons of work tonight that I could have done last night; oh, it's a huge cluster-f that accurately reflects the state of my Swiss cheese-like brain for the last year. Sleep deprivation is doing me no favors right now.

So on we get to my 17th event tomorrow. I'm sure some things will go well and others won't. Hopefully I will make enough money to survive another year. At least I'm not pregnant and nauseated. Or suffering from my jaw clamped shut from stress, unable to eat or brush my teeth for several days like during my event in 1999. So, could be worse.