Battle fatigue and holiday headaches

I’m certainly not alone in having battles to fight. It’s life! Sometimes we make more of our struggles than needed. Other times, we don’t ask for help when we should. Fighting battles – now and then, or daily – is something we all deal with. And at holiday time, it can get worse.

• Are you feeling battle fatigue? Do you know why? 
• Do you fight battles in your own head, over small decisions?
• Is it worse at the holidays?
• Who helps you through tough choices – strategies for the new job,  considering relocation, or reconciling with a spouse?
• Who helps with little choices and tasks, that all add up?
• Are you exhausted trying to do it all, including footing the bills for holiday shopping?

There are many sorts of fights – from minor irritants to significant issues of health, job security, relationships and principles. Some of these are overwhelming; we need help in battle.

Then there are legal fights – they’re often long, expensive and grueling. Fights over property, over money, over custody, over child support. We are often left depleted, financially and emotionally.

Pick your battles

Some of us wage private and public wars over seemingly tiny decisions. We haven’t learned to pick our battles. Not only does fighting every battle expend inordinate amounts of energy, but you begin to lose a sense of what is worth fighting for, and what is not. Priorities blur.

When we’re young, we don’t know how to pick our battles. It takes experience to recognize when to fight and when to withdraw. And battle comes with a price tag. Always. Its costs – and casualties – can be high.

When you pick your battles, you need to think long term, with a cool head. The big fights demand energy, resolve, and resources – physical, emotional, financial. They also require others to lend support.

Holiday stress

Yes – it’s December. The crush is on!

Holidays often feel like a battleground of errands, squabbles, conflicting schedules, too little money, too little time, and a rush to just “get through it.”

There are competing parties, competing in-laws, miles to go before you arrive – much less sleep. For those who live alone, holiday depression is common. Loneliness is magnified. For parents and children of divorce, logistics and usual complexities worsen. We are mired in the comings-and-goings as children are shuttled, handed off, and sent off – sometimes across town, sometimes across country.

We’re busy, jammed up, crazed, harried, sad, conflicted, even resentful. Where is the holiday joy?

Symptoms of Battle Fatigue

After moving my site here, a 7-week effort (with plenty of Murphy’s Law kicking in), I am pretty worn down. It was, indeed, a battle. And while still tidying up, I’ve plunged immediately into more writing and the usual “everything” of my days and nights to do with parenting and of course, the holidays.

But my mind is here and there, my body isn’t working properly (even for me), and I made a promise to myself I’d like to keep. It has to do with another battle. An important one, but the window is closing, and I haven’t the physical stamina to fight right now, even as I repeat to myself: If I can win one battle, I can win another.

I was curious; I looked up symptoms of battle fatigue.  And I have every damn one of them. Every one.

Please know – This is in no way to compare my life to those in our armed forces who have known courage and horrors I cannot imagine.

But there are other sorts of war; some of you live them, daily. Of course we are depleted from attack and defense, from rallying and retaliation, from healing wounds and being scarred again, year after year. That I still want to fight for principle as well as necessary financial support may be ridiculous, but giving up goes against everything in me. I’m a fighter.

You can’t win them all

Life isn’t fair. We’ve all heard it, said it, and I loathe its easy disguise as a truism, when it is an excuse. That particular expression causes enormous harm. It encourages us to give up, to surrender to injustice, to cheating, to cynicism.

Life isn’t fair is not an answer, not the period at the end of a sentence, and not the sentence we must bear. If we pick our battles in a timely and judicious fashion.

Learn from my mistakes. Pick your battles wisely. The holidays needn’t be a battlefield. Issues of health, the proper rearing of our children, values – these are battles to be fought. We know we can’t win them all, but we can win some, knowing that life doesn’t have to be unfair, so much as we allow it to be unfair.

The end – and not  

Forgive me – I’m tired, I’m not editing and I’m just going to “publish.” Then I need to research treatment of battle fatigue. I will wrap a scarf around my shoulders, slip into some hot stilettos, then stretch out as I perform my Google search from bed.

After all, I may be down, but I’m not out, and a little style goes a long way.


© D A Wolf

Big Little Wolf’s Daily Plate of Crazy

Then there’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Parking ticket trauma

Yesterday I experienced parking ticket trauma, a metal mechanism meltdown, a meter-over-matter moment. There was a big, fat yelling YELLOW VIOLATION on my windshield, waiting when I returned to my car well before the time limit had expired.

I’m a roll with the punches kind of gal – or at least, I’ve had to become one due to life’s not fair, pick your battles, etc., etc., etc.

But in a sleepy (albeit charming) town some 80 miles from home, that yellow paper was like red to the bull!

Did I mention that it costs $25 in gas, twice a week, to visit that little burg? Did I mention that I’m Motrin popping for the day, due to the four hours of driving? Did I mention that I always abide by parking rules, fill the meter’s hungry belly, and move my vehicle as required by law to a new spot, even if it takes a half hour of circling?

I know, I know. Life’s not fair.

But did I mention the ticket was written 15 minutes into my allotted 2-hour time frame?

I repeat: the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Tourist ticket or meter mistake?

One glance at my license plate, and it’s crystal clear that I’m an out-of-county driver. Anywhere from a 90 minute to 3-hour drive away. The ticket said – pay up (within 6 days) or show up (same timeframe) to dispute, at the municipal courthouse.

Can you say Meter, Meter, Tourist Eater?

Was it a trap, a trick, or just a malfunctioning meter pitifully past its prime?

The price of principle

What is the price tag on a principle these days?

Was I really going to spend $25 on gas, drive 4 hours, then who knows how long in court to dispute a $10 ticket? Pick your battles, you’re thinking. Send the damn ten bucks.

WRONG. Some of us have “rolled” too often – and to devastating consequences. Not this time.

Thus began the scavenger hunt

Thus began the hunt for the courthouse, or a police station – somewhere – anywhere – in aforementioned 6-square block downtown. I was sent from building to building (re-parking my car and feeding meters each time), I was late to pick up my son, my bad knee was throbbing, but I was determined to go down fighting!

At a certain point – often over something seemingly small – we snap. We say “no more” to the life’s not fair approach that chips away at our sense of justice.

Ultimately, my destination was a nondescript municipal building, all the while in each previous location I’d passed through security checkpoints dragging computer, cables, heating pad, purse, etc., and rushing against the ticking clock of the latest meter…

In the process, I lost the power cord to my laptop.

The net?

I told my tale to a very sympathetic woman by the name of Suzanne. She took my phone number – and the ticket – and said “Oh, some of these meters malfunction; they’re very old. I’ll see what I can do.”

Suzanne – where ever you are – you are a public servant who believes in public service! I thank you.

Assuming, of course, that I don’t receive another ticket in the mail, with the amount doubled, according to more of the fine print on the yellow flag of fury!

Total cost, to not “just take it?”

More Motrin (McNeil Pharmaceuticals is happy), I need a new power cord (Dell is happy) – and thus my “fighting back” – regardless of outcome – certainly exceeds $10.

Would I do it again?

Would I do it again? In a New York minute. Fighting for principle isn’t about the cost. It’s about standing up and saying no, dammit. Not this time.

© D A Wolf