Therapy in three parts

No one said that moving across the country was going to be easy. But the thing is, for the last month and a half I've been floating on a cloud of not having to deal with much. My stuff is socked safely away, and I've been granted the privilege of living rent free in a paradise-ish house overlooking all of my new valley. Sadly, however, last week it all kinda came to a head. It is almost time for the movers to extract my possessions from the storage unit and drag them 2,500 miles to my new apartment in Sausalito. The end result will be awesome. Organizing the logistics has been a nightmare.

So for the first time in a long while, last week I began to feel something annoyingly familiar. That completely obnoxious part of my psyche that loves to obsess over minutiae began working overtime, and I found myself thrust into a world that I had blissfully escaped for a while - Stress Land.

I won't bore you with the details of what all is involved in moving your entire life across the country. Suffice it to say, it's complicated and not fun. But by Friday, I was ready to be done with the worrying and get back into the California bliss that I have began to get used to. And so began a three part process:

1. Getting wasted. On Friday night, my boss (who I am living with, remember) and I decided to host a cookout. We invited four people - all of whom accepted, and then proceeded to cancel within a few hours. It was oddly hilarious and humbling at the same time. So we did what anyone would do in this situation - had two stiff martinis each and then settled into the lounge chairs by the pool with a bottle of Champagne. Two hours later our sides were stiff from laughing so hard, and we made the genius decision to get into the hydrophonic pot brownies that had been buried deep into her garage freezer for way too long.

Not surprisingly, the evening ended with us watching Monty Python on DVD, drunk texting everyone we knew, and passing out gloriously on the couches. Luckily, I woke up around 4am and took some extra strength Tylenol before passing back out, so when I rose at about 10 the next morning I felt fine. And ready for part 2...

2. Retail therapy. Napa has an outlet mall, that I have somehow managed to avoid for the last six weeks. Saturday, though, I was ready to hit the discounts. Hard. After inhaling an In 'N Out burger just for good hangover measure, I rolled into the mall. Three shirts, a skirt, and a Coach bag later, I was feeling pretty good. Movers, who? I had just scored a camel colored leather tote for $125.

After my shopping spree I was feeling pretty good. I've been going along since Saturday afternoon in a better place, for sure, but still not quite back to center, mentally speaking. This afternoon, I finally realized what was missing.

3. A really good make out session. So I promptly scheduled a date for tomorrow night with a hunky ex-football player that I met a few weeks ago.

Give me another twenty-four hours, and I'll be back on track. Personally, I like this de-stress equation. Patent pending.