#WeekendCoffeeShare: Driven by Anxiety

Published on by Yinglan

Good morning or afternoon and welcome. Coffee? Tea?

To say the least, this week was driven by anxiety. I spent my work days ignoring emails until the last minutes – all those people asking for receipts can either get it themselves or wait. I was so far behind on my credit card reconciliations due to all the problems the new program implementation has tossed in my direction. As of Friday afternoon, I was able to get caught up to the 27th of September.

My supervisor told me to take it easy, that if I need to get off work early, I could. He’s so understanding, isn’t he? Unfortunately, as bad as the anxiety is at work, the anxiety outside of work is worse. I mean, do you know what’s like to be on demand for someone every hour of every day? If I don’t jump when mom says jump, ooh, you do NOT want to see the ending to that story.

Surprisingly, that’s what I’m experiencing and it’s frustrating

If we were having coffee or tea, I would tell you I have little idea as to how my garden is going at the moment. I know I had to pull out a couple of cucumber plants lately but don’t remember when. It was done for the season, I could tell.

I have been tilling the front yard every night, trying to rid the ridiculous deep grass roots. My front yard is now “virtually” grass free though if you use a bow rake and peel back the top layer of soil, you’d find tons and tons of roots. I actually spent a hour clearing the roots that’s been wrapped around a manhole cover the other night. I was so shocked when I saw it.

My mom and I worked on the front yard until dark or until we couldn’t see anymore. My cousin came over and helped for two nights. Mom said he felt guilty for not helping especially after I bought dinner for everybody two weeks ago.

Mom said I should be ashamed, buying their labor with meals, but I feel I should not feel ashamed. They are family. Family are supposed to help each other. I have never asked anyone’s help until now when I have been deemed so uncapable of completing the task of redoing my front yard.

Believe me when I say I was reluctant to ask for their help. They haven’t been treated me fairly from the start. During the 3 years when mom left me with them, all my aunt had done was beat me with a stick and locked me outside in the dark. To teach me a lesson, they all said. What lesson is that? To grow a hard shell made up of anger and sadness?

My uncle often joined in with his sneers and taunts. I haven’t forgotten about it, considering a person’s sharpest memories stem from childhood.

So no, I don’t think I should feel ashamed of myself for guilting them into helping me. Considering all the times I’ve helped all of them in the last two years, the least they can do is return a favor.

I would thank you for joining me in this edition of #weekendcoffeeshare and hope we’ll both return next week.

23 thoughts on “#WeekendCoffeeShare: Driven by Anxiety”

  1. I don’t envy your de-rooting. It took two summers of pick-work to get all of the aspen and wild rose roots out from under a section of neglected lawn I removed for the back yard garden planters. Are you going to replace the lawn, or do you have other, less “suburban” plans?

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    1. I just ordered 17 tons (literally) of rocks and am planning to fill the yard with it, well, not entirely, some of it will be flower beds. I’m just tired of weeds taking over my lawn every year.

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      1. I understand… completely. I’m down to just a minimal lawn anymore. And this year’s “weed-and-feed” killed two old wisteria that apparently had some roots under the lawn. Very sad.

        Be sure to use thick, impermeable plastic under the rocks, and don’t let leaves or pine needles accumulate in them. (I blow out the rocks weekly.) Rock isn’t zero maintenance, and it’s a pain to have to dig it out to clean it after it accumulates dirt and organic material in which weeds will still grow. But it is easier to weed, as long as the roots can’t penetrate the plastic. And trust me, DON’T use “weedblock”.

        Good luck with this!

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      2. Fortunately, there are little leaves and pine needles in my from yard since it’s still a fairly new neighborhood and a lot of the houses has done little landscaping.
        I recently completed putting the best landscape fabric on top of the bare soil and I know the grass will try to grow again but I’ll deal with it when it comes.

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  2. Hi YingLan. In what culture is it right for one to receive support but never give it? In what kind of family is that okay? I would suggest that it is a very unhealthy culture or family that allows such things to happen.
    I hope this too passes and they grow up someday.

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    1. My mother thinks the only person her family should be helping is her and I don’t deserve anyone’s help. I’m pretty sure that’s not of any culture.

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  4. Oh gosh this makes me very sad and I am feeling for you. You are an adult…and I hope that over time you can leave some of the dreadfulness (as you have outlined) behind and move on to a gentler life. Denyse #weekendcoffeeshare

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  5. I’m sorry about the anxiety made worse by family. Do take time for yourself and fight for your own well-being! I once had to *try* to remove overgrown mint from a place I was living and those invasive buggers had roots everywhere. I sure don’t envy you that!

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  6. I’ve been trying to keep to an inbox zero over the last few weeks, trying to dip in and out at set times during man it’s so hard! It constantly keeps coming through the door. I so wish they would get bundled up and sent through a couple of times a day!

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  7. I’m curious because I am working — or trying to — work on my front and backyard. From what time to what time do you work on it. I’m squeeze in something even if it’s 20 minutes per day.

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      1. Oh I wish I got home at 6 pm or earlier. I end my work day at 5:30pm. Though it does not take very long to get home, I still have to pick up my kid and find my car in the parking lot. I get home at around 6:30 pm and make dinner. I probably would not be able to do 2 hours of gardening even if I wanted to.

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      2. Yeah, that would be late. There’s always the weekend. I think I probably did about 8 hours each yesterday and most likely again today and that’s exhausting.

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