Dealin' With It

Charlie is two years and four months old. For the first six months, I put out fires--failing heart, bleeding brain, wonky kidneys, brain filling with fluid, and then, just for funsies, seizures followed by a strict protocol that involved never leaving the house for two months.


On top of the clear-cut medical stuff, there was the fact that his brain had bled and all the implications that come along with something like that. I had intellectual programs to design, books to read, alternative therapies to research. I could feel Charlie's formative moments slipping away from me and the pressure was on.


At this point in the game, things seem to have calmed. The doctor's appointments are farther apart, the tests are fewer. Therapy is a constant, but it's definitely not unmanageable. Things feel stable.


So what I'm asking Ye Wise People of the Internets is, what do you do with stress? Not the crazy, life-and-death stress, but the day-to-day, normal variety. How do you unwind at the end of a long day of minutia? I'm trying to be a little more laid back; a little more care free. I'm discovering that I may have forgotten how to do that. Is that possible?