Catastrophizing

So maybe it's just the stress of the holidays but in the past couple of weeks Kelly and I have definitely felt the reality of three kids four and under sinking in. I'm not even sure how or where i'd begin if I were to begin to whine/describe all that's gone down. It's just been overwhelming. And exhausting.

Several years ago my wonderful wife (who just joined me at the ripe age of 33 the other day, btw) invented a word that sums up both of our tendencies during times like these: catastrophize.

To catastrophize is to cull through a particularly challenging time of life and magnify all that is hard while carefully avoiding anything hopeful or good. You then extrapolate all the hard things over the next fifty years of your life. Tah-dah, you've just managed to catastrophize! See how easy that was? Don't we all feel better now?

This is probably indicative of some deeper psychological issues, at least in me. But that's for another days post.