It's Official, I'm Stressed

Back in my junior high and high school days my finger tips and palms itched and peeled all the time. I was, of course, mortified that my hands were peely and I did my best to hide them. It was weird, you know? They weren't rashy. They just had a really deep "itch" (for lack of a better word) and the skin just flaked off. My mom told me that hers used to do that, and when she graduated from college they just quit. She always chalked it up to stress.

One day, some time in college, I realized my hands no longer peeled. Which is funny if you consider how obsessed I was with grades (and making sure they were as close to perfect as possible). I thought of myself as stressed, but I wasn't apparently.

On a related note, just this morning Hubs and I were remembering the "good times" in college. I mentioned that I missed the camaraderie. I really didn't have that many of my own friends. I had acquaintances that I called friends, but I couldn't find most of them today. They bar hopped on the weekends to search out men and I searched out my man and we ate Doritos and drank Pepsi in front of "Friends." I got very used to being the classroom friend or the study partner. Really I've never been much of anyone's friend beyond the event in which we shared since grade school. I think it's the way I'm wired. I'm content with a book most of the time and it's a real effort to put together an extracurricular gathering. (I took the spiritual gifting assessment and Hostess is NOT my gifting by any stretch (My MIL, on the other hand, could write the book)). I think maintaining friends is stressful to me. Especially in the formative years when friends are your everything.

However Hubs did have friends. Also classroom friends, but since he was in engineering his classroom hours extended to about 4AM rather frequently. I often brought him dinner and we ate together. Before long the whole class adopted me as the resident wife. I'd bring in a casserole and some paper plates and they would decimate it. His friends became my friends. And now that he works at an office, his friends are his friends and I miss the camaraderie. Because these men have wives and don't need me to cook. Nor would they eat what I cook because I use butter and sugar liberally.

Hmmmm, the point of that? I think interpersonal relationships stress me out and I didn't stress about them in college. I think that was my point.

Anyway.

The last couple of days my fingertips have been itching like crazy and I noticed last night that one was peeling. This morning they are all peeling and my palms are itching also. Since NOTHING chemical has changed in my life (indicating allergies or some other sensitivity) I'm crediting stress.

I didn't miss this. It was a vague memory that I would have been happy to keep that way. I hope that whatever is stressing me goes away.

Maybe it is lack of sleep? I don't know. So weird.