What do you do when you are stressed? I use to eat copious quantities of things made with chocolate and/or covered in salt. That doesn't work for me so well these days. I have found that recently I've been burying myself in books. Books are a nice safe place to hide. There are usually unrealistic people in books that I wish would live with me. Or I wish I could be as free and easy as the heroine in the story. That's not going to happen. "I yam who I yam," as Popeye use to say. I'm not going to learn to fly a helicopter and I'm not going to have a wild and crazy affaire with a mysterious young man who seems to be perfect.... not going to happen. I am rambling I realize. My work life (the part that pays the bills so I can play with paint and feed Scooter) is in disarray. My co-worker is retiring and I've been anxious about that. I'm not sleeping so well and my stomach is a mess some days. Yep, classic symptoms of stress and anxiety. Wish I were rich because a few therapy sessions would be welcome right now.
What I've found is, the stress has been messing with my muse. Now that is just not acceptable. I have all these wonderful play toys and I haven't been using with them. "Why?" I'm finally asking myself. My inner child is the creative part of me. She loves paint, getting her hands messy and tossing things around as she uses them. She is also the one that worries about things changing. She's the one that is worrying in the middle of the night. I haven't been doing my part to take care of her. She has been running the show for about three weeks now... That is not working for me.
Today I took her to the art table even though I didn't want to. We need to play. This is the results of our playtime. I took pieces of paper sitting on the table and made a collage. The alphabet is the back of a package. The bicycle and the yellow stripe are washi tape I peeled off an envelope from my friend, Amber in Louisiana. There is a bit of a gelli print and piece of a napkin, as well. The words are also from Amber. I thought they were appropriate for how I've been feeling. How did she know to put those words on my envelope?
How do you handle stress?
