A Good Reason to Never Drink and Bathe

So, I've been having some trouble with stress lately. To be honest, by lately, I mean the better part of my adult life and quite some time before that. I've never handled stress well and here in the past few months it been worse: I've started to grind my teeth which is leading to tension headaches, I cry at the drop of a hat and I spend a good deal of time feeling very close to small panic attacks.

Once upon a time I would have just gone to the doctor, but I haven't had health insurance for several years now, so those days are long gone. Being sick of the stress and its associated health issues, I'm on a mission to get better at dealing with my stress.

I'd decided the other night to have a long soak in the bathtub, good classical music, candles, bubble bath, a glass of wine, and a homemade sugar scrub I'd just whipped up. Sounded like heaven.

So, I got everything ready. I should probably mention that by this point I was two glasses of wine in. Normally, this would be no big deal for me, but it had been longer than usual since I'd had anything alcoholic to drink, so I was fairly tipsy, and in a HUGE hurry, apparently.

My bathwater was way too hot, but instead of just waiting for it to cool down I ran to the kitchen for a few handfuls of ice cubes and tossed them it. I finally talked myself into the water and tried to relax, sipping on my wine. I tried to lay back into the water, using a rolled up bath towel for a pillow. Bad idea. I don't know if all the alcohol decided to hit me at once (it can do that, right? ;) ) or what but I went from tipsy to drunk in a flash. My heart rate started going up and I was having a hard time catching my breath. I was uncomfortably hot.

But, of course, being now drunk instead of getting out of the bath I decided to go ahead and use my sugar scrub and shave my legs. Genius. I'm lucky I didn't lop off a leg. THEN, I finally decided it was probably a good idea to get out of the water. I ended up lying in bed trying to cool off while sending drunken text messages to Deven, who was down the street talking to a neighbor. Very mature of me.

My mother found this hysterical. And in retrospect, I do to. All in all, not the most relaxing choice in the end. I think next time I'll skip the wine. Or the bath. I'm undecided. Either way, you'll probably being hearing more about this stress relief mission.