Chatter.

My mother calls me at work, asking if I have a minute.  I am staring at hundreds of emails that need answering, I've just been told I'm expected to lead a presentation in an hour - about what, no one has volunteered to tell me - and I have school projects waiting in the queue, teammates texting me for answers and my opinion.

So no, I don't really have a minute.

But, it's my Mom.  My very best friend in this whole world.  I love my Mom.  And I know someday - hopefully in the very distant, very far off future, many years from now - there will come a time that I would give anything to hear my Mom's voice again, to have her call me up on a random work day morning.

So yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a minute, Mom.  I absolutely do.

When my Mom has finished her story, she asks how I am doing, what's bothering me.  (Moms can always tell can't they?  It's sort of uncanny how good they are at that.)  I start to list off the things I need to do, the projects I'm worried about, telling her over and over again that I'm stressed.

"Well, you have a lot going on, Kel" she tells me.  "It was bound to happen eventually that you got overloaded."

"I know," I tell her. "I know.  But I've been so good about being able to manage it, to handle it all.  Right now I feel like I'm about to crack."  Panicked, I tell her that I've got to go, I've got to sort out what exactly this presentation I'm supposed to lead in an hour is even about.

Mom tells me to hang in there - because that's what Mom's do - and we say goodbye.

I sit for a moment, staring a my desk, reading my too long to-do list, staring at the emails that refuse to stop pouring in.  And then I remember.  Wait a minute.  I'm in charge here.  I'm the one who controls how I'm feeling about all of this.  Just as I'm also the one who gets to say yes or no to this last minute surprise presentation.

I decide to say no.
I write back and tell them that they needed to give me more notice, that they'd have to reschedule.

Surprise, surprise, they agreed immediately, without an ounce of push back.

Sometimes I forget that I've climbed a few rungs on this corporate ladder.  I know what my priorities are, and where my focus should be.  That I get a say in these things, I'm no longer a peon.  I can say no. 

******

Managing Operations.  This is, no joke, one of the most difficult classes I have ever taken in my life.  I thought Stats was hard last semester - and it was - but I could at least see what the instructor was trying to get at, even if I couldn't exactly solve the problem myself.  But with Ops?  It's like a foreign language and I feel completely lost.  During class this past weekend, I grab my instructor as he circulates the room checking our progress on the file we were working on, and tell him as much.  "I need you to talk me off the ledge," I explain, "because I am starting to freak out about what this final is going to look like."

He sits down next to me, looks me straight in the eye.  "Listen," he tells me.  "This is hard stuff.  It's brand new for a lot of people and the concepts aren't easy even for those that have seen it before.  But you're not the canary going into a mine in this classroom.  You're not the girl who freaks out at the earliest signs of trouble. You've got other classmates who panic and stress out and email me at all hours.  Let them do that.  That's not the way you operate.  Don't fall into that trap."

I eye him skeptically.

"Really. You'll be okay.  Just do your best, keep working hard.  Let the other ones panic.  You're better than that."

******

My yoga teacher tells me, when I ask for her help getting up into a handstand, that part of the reason - along with my height - that she thinks it is challenging for me to get up on my own is because I'm a grounded person to begin with.  "You're calm and level-headed," she tells me. "that makes it harder to be light on your feet and hop upside down like it's no big thing."

"Still, I want to be able to do it." I tell her, frustrated. "Sometimes I'm not even sure how much my level-headed nature even helps me."

She nods, listening.  "And you will do it," she replies.  "You will.  But don't dismiss that calmness under pressure.  It will always serve you well."

******

There is an expression, one that I'm paraphrasing, that talks about how the only person who can truly make you feel a certain way is yourself.

Earlier this week, I was feeling a little glum, a little frazzled, a lot exhausted, and generally overwhelmed.  I took myself to yoga, which is my usual cure-all.  While the stretching and workout felt great I couldn't seem to quiet my mind like usual, I had a zillion thoughts running rampant - some that were completely out of my control and didn't matter - and I could not, for the life of me, get them to stop.

Determined, I went back to yoga the next night.  The yoga studio backs up to the core fusion classes and when schedules overlap, we yogis can often hear the core instructor barking out her routines.  As class began my teacher instructed us to find a comfortable seat on our mat.  "Instead of trying to ignore core fusion," she said, "I want you to notice the noise.  Notice it.  And then let it go.  It's all just chatter.  Background noise."

A few minutes later we moved into our first down dog of the evening and I felt immensely, immediately better.  I might still be exhausted with too much to do and not enough hours but that was okay.  I had my mojo back.  Because it dawned on me - again - for sometimes we need these reminders - that I've got what I need for this journey.  No more and no less.  It's there.  It's always there.  And the rest of it is just unnecessary noise.