Growing up, my Mum used to tell me a story about an investment banker who found herself up at 3am every night baking cookies, because baking was the only thing that genuinely made her happy and helped her relax. Ultimately, she realized that was what she should be doing all along…and promptly quit her job at the bank and became a full time professional baker.
The moral of the story being: take the time to do what makes you happy, and it will ultimately be a huge stride to putting yourself on the right path for you…
Do what makes you happy…
Well, I’m still sort of figuring that one out…it’s been a bit difficult lately. But I have landed on a few things.
Surprisingly, cooking seems to be one of them. Thing one? The pasties turned out *amazingly*. I actually squealed with delight when I took them out of the oven! The first batch was a little tough (I over kneaded the dough) but the second was pretty much perfect. Now I can just play with seasoning and fillings and things. I make a batch at the beginning of the week and that’s lunches mostly sorted until the following weekend. Very hand, and I’m surprisingly proud of myself. I never ever thought I would be picking up the knack of cooking…
Let alone that I would figure out that I really, actually, seem to enjoy it…
But really, it’s about time isn’t it?
I will admit that things have not been precisely the…easiest…for me since we returned home. At first we were just so glad to be home that we really didn’t think of anything else, and time felt like it was in some strange kind of holding pattern. Then when time finally felt like it had started to move again, it decided to thunder forward with the speed of an oncoming locomotive. And suddenly, my 39th birthday is around the corner, and December is looming behind that and I’m at the end of my “6 month emergency plan”. I’m more than a little bit…terrified. And doing my best not to be terrified which is usually good for at least one meltdown a month…but hey, no one is perfect right?
Because honestly, who in the whole world really actually thought that this was going to last this long? I mean if I’m truly straight up with myself, I’ll admit that I was harbouring the thought that it would be – if not over – at least on its way to resolution by September. It never really occurred to me that the entire world – let alone just my comparatively small industry – would be shut down for this long. And I’m not really 100% sure I was ready to deal with the unavoidable reality that this is…what normal looks like for the foreseeable future. I have no real clue what’s going to happen after Christmas, and if I stare that in the face for too long, it grows fangs and snaps my head off – which in turn makes me a pretty spikey person to be around. I’ve issued multiple apologies to pretty much everyone around me: Amras, my parents, Silver, my coworkers…my only real excuse is I’ve gone from a life that did not require a great deal of hands on responsibility to a life that requires a massive amount of responsibility in a very short period of time, and I have medium-length bouts of not dealing with the emotional whiplash very well at all.
So…there’s that…
But as the people around me who care about me deeply keep reminding me: depression can either control you or you can control it. So, to the best of my ability I’m at least trying to keep the Dragons down to a dull roar…
Feeding other people does seem to help with that!
As does gardening…and bike riding, and finally – after several years of saying “I really do want to do that some day” – starting my handicrafts business. The idea of creating something that can bring someone else joy, really really helps…and I need to remember to make more time for that. For multiple reasons, not the least of which is that the motion of a needle and thread still go a long way to calming down my rather overly active brainwaves…
Life right now is a rollercaster…or …a rollercoaster combined with some kind of bizarre drag race where we can’t even see the white checkered flag. But at the very least, there seem to be a decent amount of pit stops along the way…
And, as always, I say please – be kind. Always be kind. Most especially now and most especially to yourself.