Starting again, again

Well, my clever plan to post daily and build a habit of blogging didn’t work as planned. As I mentioned in my previous post, my computer promptly had issues which made posting regularly problematic. By the time things were smoothed out with that my seasonal depression was flaring up further, and the holidays made things busy-busy-busy. This year’s Christmas was epically stressful, and not for any one reason. My partner and I spent the three hour drive drive back from Western Massachusetts discussing why things were so stressful this year. As far as I can tell, none of the issues we identified were any different that previous years, they just caused even more stress than they usually do. We’ve spent a lot of the last couple days planning and shopping and organizing, in an attempt to not only take the stress out of the holidays from now on, but where ever possible replace the stressful problems with meaningful traditions.

For example, a lot of our family’s Christmas stress stems from people staying up late on Christmas Eve frantically wrapping. Many of us are spatially-challenged and perfectionists, so trying to wrap gifts when we are overtired and and on a deadline can easily bring us to the brink of tears. This stressful situation is compounded by a few family members being early risers, and we have a late night of panicked gift-wrapping and then a long morning of people trying not to be impatient waiting for the last-minuters to crawl out of bed. The plan for heading off this stressful scenario and reshaping it into a fun tradition is to host a Wrap Party at our apartment in early to mid December.

Having a party well in advance of Christmas will give everyone a whole day to get it done at a leisurely pace. A more complex problem to solve was making it easier on those of us who find gift-wrapping difficult due to perfectionism, a poor sense of spatial-relations, and so on. So we hit Target’s after-Christmas clearance and stocked up on value packs of gift bags, tape, stick-on bows, and yarn and wired ribbon which tie much easier than curling ribbon. Then we took a trip to The Container Store for rolls of wrapping paper; they have some with a grid printed on the back for a cutting guideline. When we mentioned to a salesperson that we were looking for that type, she even pointed us to a tool for cutting wrapping paper that looked so handy that we bought two. We also bought a container to store giftwrap, since the paper grocery bag we used last year was seriously not cutting it. All in all, it looks like we’re well on our way to transforming one of the biggest Christmas stresses in our family into a pleasant get-together.

We have some other ideas like this, and we’re trying to do as much like this as possible. Rather than trying to simply eliminate stressful situations, we’re looking for ways to turn them into something not just less-stressful but actively relaxing. This got me thinking about my ongoing struggles with identity and feeling at peace with myself and my place in the world. It seems to me that I should see if there are similar things I can do in my daily life, and in my mental space. So rather than approaching this blog like an obligation and making rules for how often I must post, I’m going to try and look at this blog as a sanctuary. Somewhere I can go to work through issues, explore ideas, and watch my progress as I find my path. That was the sentiment I was going for in my post “Making myself at home” but I got caught up in destructive language ‘challenge’ and ‘work’. These words shouldn’t have to be destructive, and I want to work on (oops, there it is again!) making them safer words for me. I want to learn how to keep from putting up mental defenses and feeling panicked by words like those. In the meantime, I’ll try looking at the same idea with kinder eyes; so I’m going to try to visit this blog and share my progress as regularly as is comfortable and healthy for me. I still hope that that with be fairly often, but time will tell.

Backgrounds, planning, and meditations

This bouquet of brilliant backgrounds is most photogenic of the myriad things that have gobbled up the week or so it’s been since I last blogged (still getting the hang of doing so regularly, I must admit!). I’m running a background swap at my ATC group’s retreat at the end of the month, and I’m trying to make sure I have quite a few of my own to swap. I’m not sure how many I’ll be able to part with, I love how most of these came out! That’s the joy of working on a somewhat bigger scale; making an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of watercolor paper will produce 10 beautiful ATC backgrounds, as well as a few tiny scraps. I’m sure I’ll be able to part with at least a few from each sheet.

Aside from playing with paints, I’ve been very busy planning our retreat; I’m in charge of coordinating the Activity Guide. There’s been a ton of work involved getting descriptions and supply lists written and rewritten, but I am blessedly nearing completion. I’m eager to have it taken care of so that I can put more of my mental cycles to some bigger issues that have been plaguing me.

I’ve been very preoccupied lately with figuring out what my future holds, with – as the blog says – finding my path. I’m living with a lot of pain right now, from so many sources I’m having difficulty sorting it all out. I’m letting go of a business that once held so much promise but in the end just caused me a lot of pain. I’m learning to live with seasonal depression all over again, as a very rainy summer has left me scrambling for new tools. I’m pondering what it means to be on the autistic spectrum, what it means to be an artist, and how a person like that can fit into a society that doesn’t really seem to know how to accept either of those things. I’m struggling to find my identity, to understand my strengths and weaknesses, and how to make peace with it all.