Anxiety just seems to be something I can never outrun. No matter how much I try to control my surroundings and “input”, I always end up careening toward a meltdown.
In talking to other creative types, I’ve found that this is actually pretty prevalent. No matter how much happiness and satisfaction our chosen “craft” brings us, they can also have some negative aspects. Most of us have a million ideas a day, but never enough time to bring a fraction of them into reality. This in itself can make you feel anxious and frustrated, but then when you pile on all the perfect images on pinterest and instagram, you can’t help but feel defeated.
I personally have a bad habit of being in the middle of one project, and thinking of a handful of new ideas I want to try out next. Then I’ll hop on google or pinterest to see if I can find similar projects or techniques to refine my idea. Seeing those projects gives me inspiration for 10 other things I could try, and the current project is as good as abandoned (lets sew a dress! build a pallet bench! paint the front door red! plant an herb garden!!!!) This creates a ton of excitement in a creative person. Its true happiness. Really gets the heart pumping…
And then.
The baby starts crying.
And the toddler starts crushing her crackers into the rug (or, literally, just now, decides to “paint” the wall with diaper cream. That stuff is thick, y’all.)
You glance around at all the toys and non-toys on your floor and think about how long it will take you to clean that up before you can even think about vacuuming.
And the whole system crashes, because:
“I’ll never be able to do any of those things!!! … I can’t ever get anything done!!! … Why did I think I could start a craft business with a needy infant and toddler?!?! … Why is this so hard?!?! … Which leads to: All my ideas are crazy… Everybody is gonna think my stuff is dumb… I suck at life…”
Blah, blah, dramatic exclamations, blah blah…
This is when my brain explodes and everything shuts down. The accumulation of all those unfinished projects, plus kid noise, plus brain noise, plus visual clutter, plus physical clutter just overwhelms me, and I surrender to an ugly cry and a migraine.
When will I learn that if I just practice a little moderation, I’d save myself a lot of grief? Its clearly an idea I need to explore. After I take a nap.
Vixen and Kit 