High stress is an interesting thing. If you’re able to observe your own behavior at all in the midst of a stressful time, it can be enlightening. I have been under moderate to high stress for almost two months now. Some of it was chosen (the move, the new job, etc.) and some of it was unavoidable (the fire and all issues surrounding the fire).

Everyone has certain aspects of their personality that are dominant and more easily accessible than other aspects. As we age, we (hopefully) become more well rounded and able to access those other traits and put them to use. Some people work harder at this than others and for some the work is more difficult.

I have two dominate aspects to my personality: emotional/empathetic and organizational/tactical. Emotional/empathetic Meredith wasn’t much good to me during this time, although that didn’t keep her from coming out occasionally. Pretty much all she did was cry and be overwhelmed. That’s probably why Tactical/Organizational General Meredith pretty much took over. General Meredith got things DONE, but man was she scary sometimes. And I couldn’t turn her off.

It was really interesting to watch and exhausting to embody. (I’m sure it was really fun to deal with for Dean also.) Being unable to access the other parts of myself that were more balanced was not fun, but it did give me a little insight into how far I’ve come, which was nice.

Dean and I have started go through the things we’ve gotten back from the cleaners. They cleaning service was great and they were all very nice people, but this process in and of itself has also been overwhelming. We’re having to document any damage to things that have been returned for insurance and find something comparable online to assign value to. The Sport 7 boxing gloves that I got in Paris that are now completely falling apart? How do you assign value to that? Best you can, I suppose.

Don’t get me wrong, we consider ourselves very lucky and with are incredibly thankful that our apartment complex required us to be insured prior to move-in, otherwise it could have very easily been one of those things on the to do list that we hadn’t yet completed. It’s been a very long process, much longer than I ever would have thought possible. But I definitely think we have grown through this experience. How could we not?

All of the effects of this stress will probably be much more apparent once we’re out of the forest and looking back at the trees, however, there are a few that I can see already. Dean has really come into his own in that he’s begun making decisions and taking charge of things more assuredly than before. He’s had to, because I couldn’t handle everything on my own and there were times when Emotional Meredith was just incapable of doing crap. Ironically, I’m not as terrified of running out of money as I was before we moved. You think it would be the opposite, but I’ve just been using savings. That’s why it’s there and we have to use it. So. Eventually things will get better and we’ll be able to save again.

This week we’ve met a couple of new people. I met a trainer through the man who owns the cleaning service that’s been taking care of our stuff. Apparently he was looking at what was in our pile of possessions and asked Dean who the martial artist was. I had lunch with the guy yesterday and he filled me in on the fitness scene in Nashville and is going to try and connect me with some people he knows. Last night, Dean and I had lunch with an awesome friend of a friend who has several job leads for Dean. We’re starting to feel like we have potential again. Nothing concrete has happened, but it’s nice to start to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

And I know we’ll get there together.

Personalities and Potential