Something’s got to give

Three thirty and I can’t sleep.  Anxious.  So many people want me to do so many things, and today it took all my strength just to do half the dishes.  Three weeks and I’m still not over this flu.  Rarely been so weak in my life.  So here I am and I’m ready to name names. 

1.  Some family friends in Canada, whom I barely know, have a son who’s suddenly decided to marry a fellow Ukrainian girl who’s living in Sydney.  I know, I’m confused already too.  For some reason, it’s all happening in exactly one month.  It seems they want my family to put them up for a fortnight, and also plan the whole wedding for them.  Furthermore, we have a suspicion that the parents have both been unemployed for a while, and have barely a penny to their names.  Apparently this is all now our problem.  My parents are junk hoarders whose house is packed to the rafters with clutter, and they both seem to be in such poor health they barely manage to run their own simple lives, let alone help anyone else.  If we don’t help them, we’ll look very bad because these people have hosted my brother several times on his trips to Canada. 

2.  In about six weeks, there’s a huge family reunion in Queenland.  My aunt and I are supposed to organise icebreakers for the first evening.  We haven’t even managed to get together and talk about it.  We have no idea what we’re doing. 

3.  Just before or after the reunion, I’m planning to visit Alexander near Byron for a week.  This will involve driving there and back, camping for a week, somehow getting food for myself when I don’t even manage that at home, plus paying for the whole venture.  Oh, and of course actually being useful while I’m there.  He says he wants me to help with shooting an amateur film.  Did I mention I washed half the dishes this afternoon, then collapsed for the rest of the day?

4.  The NSW state election is coming up in just over two weeks.  Months ago I volunteered to letterbox fliers and hand out how-to-vote fliers on election day, both of which are utterly beyond me at the moment, but I’m hoping I’ll recover sufficiently in time.  The local candidate has also been asking me to help her hand out material at my local train station and shopping centre, and I feel guilty for saying no, without even giving a reason.  Actually, I didn’t even know she was the candidate, or I might have been less terse in my emailed replies. 

5.  And then there’s doctors to see, and friends who planned to have lunch, and a couple of support groups I really wanted to get to.  I offered my mother help cleaning out her guest room (yeah right, it needs serious professional help)  Meanwhile I’ve been so sick for so long there’s no clean clothes, the fridge is almost bare, and the floors… well, if I see tumbleweed rolling past I’ll have no right to act surprised. 

6.  I forgot.  Tlalit just had her baby last Friday.  She wants astrological analysis of the baby’s chart.  My astrology was never better than amateur, and is now rusty as a shipwreck.  Plus my astrology program is throwing up completely erroneous calculations, and needs at the very least to be reinstalled.  I probably also need to email her, buy a gift and card, and post them overseas in a big hurry. 

Is it just me or does this seem like an unmanageable workload for two healthy people, let alone for one who can barely stand?  The biggest worry is, the biggest threat to my health is stress.  Yup, if I worry about this, things could get even worse. 

Well, it’s now four AM and pleasant drowsiness has still not overwhelmed me.  What do you think?  Do I seem stressed?