Never-Ending Stress Story  

Of course, between now and "Pittsburgh," it would be too much to hope that nothing angst-laden will happen. The entire experience (from the preparation to the actual event), and the days following it spell A-N-X-I-E-T-Y to me and to everyone involved.

I need 48 hours in a day. I need more than 2-3 hours of sleep each night. I need this to be over and done with -- successfully (yes, I mean "in a successful manner). Most importantly, I need a vacation -- in Cancun.

Right now, I want one of those remote controls that Adam Sandler's character had in the movie "Click," where I can hit "Pause" and I have more time to do all I need to do in a day, and still have time to sleep (and probably wake up fat, like he did in the movie). I want to hit "Rewind" to undo some things that I must have done while I'm half-awake, half-dead in my sleepless state. And I want to hit "Fast Forward" to May 9, 2008, when I would have survived "Pittsburgh" and breeze through the stress that comes after it.

So what if I miss all of life's moments while I'm in "Fast Forward" mode in my remote control? I'm missing all of life's moments now as it is, anyway.

A long time ago, one of my professors asked our class this question:

At the time, I was young and idealistic, so I did not want to live my life over. Regret is a sad, hopeless feeling, and looking back and asking, "What if?" and knowing you are powerless to change things would not help. So I lived my life the way I wanted to.

Now that I'm older, and I could hope, wiser, I still would not want to live my life over, but it would be because I really, truly, ABSOLUTELY refuse to go through all of this stress all over again.