The Stress Factor

“Mom, I am having a terrible day! The HUGE English essay is due on Wednesday, and I’m feeling sick, and I REALLY should be studying for that Chem test this week, and don’t even get me STARTED on Comms, and what if I lose my scholarship? I don’t even know why I’m AT college! Why am I even here?! I don’t even know what I want to do with my life! … blah, blah, blah.”

When I have kids who are in college, I will be sorely tempted to set up a permanent busy tone during the month before finals.

She simply said, “Dia, you’re having a bad day. Yesterday (and all month before that), you loved college. Just find something to laugh about and stop stressing out!”

Yeah, right. So I was on Cakewrecks.blogspot.com looking for something to laugh about (it’s full of them, go check it out), and I found this cake (ha HA! Now this relates to food! YES!):

These were the words I lived by during what should have been an insanely stressful senior year. Junior year had just been too crazy, and though I was taking even more AP classes and had more responsibilities senior year, I decided to just stop freaking out and realize what things really mattered. I got to see my family, and sleep, and my blood pressure probably went down. Somehow, things just worked themselves out—and my GPA didn’t even (somehow?!) suffer.

I’m reminded of Count Rugen’s ironic response to a stressed-out Prince Humperdink as they’re going in to torture Wesley: “Well, get some rest. If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.”

In the GRAND scheme of things, college will matter. But freaking out over every assignment, class, grade, professor, activity and responsibility will NOT. I can find peace in laughing about it.

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