My Master’s adviser once told me that there are 5 major sources of stress in life: death, divorce, moving, a new job, and a new baby. While there are definitely more life stressors than this, I’ve still thought about his comment frequently over the years, particularly when my first child was born and again, now that I have another on the way. It turns out that I have 3 of his stressors looming in the near future: a move in 2 weeks, a husband starting a new job in 4 weeks, a new baby in 10 weeks, and a new job for me in 5 months. For any normal person, all of this change is a lot to handle. For a pregnant woman (read: no meds) who has a history of anxiety and depression, these changes can be downright debilitating. It’s not that I’m not happy or excited about what’s on the horizon. In fact, it’s the opposite-I’m so excited and eager that I want to get our new life started. In running terms, I feel like it’s the night before a big race and I cannot sleep. I know that I’ll be fine as soon as I can start running, just as long as I can make it through this tortuous night of tossing and turning and anticipation. Only this “night” has lasted for a week and will (I’m assuming) continue until we can finally turn on the engine and get started on our cross-country drive.

All of this pent-up excitement and energy has one pretty striking side effect: a complete inability to focus on work. As a researcher (and soon to be academic), my work is 100% self-guided. Sure, I have data to analyze and papers to write and more tasks to manage than I can scribble onto a 5’x10’ white board. But if I’m completely honest, nothing in my life will change if these papers get done today or two months from now. Sometimes this lack of structure is freeing. I get to work on what I want, when and where I want to. However, in times of high anxiety (or severe depression), the freedom of my work can be draining. I know that I should be spending these last two weeks in the office putting petal to the metal and cranking out papers before I head out on maternity leave in October. In reality, I can’t seem to get my shit together to actually accomplish any tasks. For instance, I spent at least 2 hours today reading blog posts about ultra-running. Normally I use long-distance running as a way to combat some of my struggles with anxiety. However, 7 months into pregnancy combined with 100+ temperatures has sort of quelled my ability to run this week (even when I can run, 5 miles is about my max right now-not exactly the mileage of my ultra daydreams). So now I’m falling back on a tactic I used back in middle school, well before I knew that there was a name for my anxiety: listen to loud, angsty music (Nirvana anyone?) and write my heart out.