Quarter-Life Crisis – Part I

My mom tells me that when I was a kid, I used to sit cross-legged on the floor and rip paper into tiny shreds. This was cause for concern for a while, but I turned out mostly okay, so I guess it wasn’t really much to worry about.

Nevertheless, I have noticed that when I find myself feeling stressed out, it helps for me to have something menial to do with my hands. This accounts for a variety of my habits and the production of many a crafy little item. Examples: knitting, cross-stitching, deocorating small boxes, coloring, and so on. Sometimes I don’t even have to produce anything–I just have to keep my hands occupied.

I suppose I’ve thought about this before, but I didn’t really realize how much it matters for me to keep my hands busy until tonight, when I found myself sitting at my desk with a pile of tiny little paper squares and another pile of paper scraps that I’d cut away from the squares–all in an attempt to avoid a full-fledged quarter-life crisis. A flashback to me at three years old, just with the addition of a pair of scissors (child-friendly Fiskars, though!). Three-year old me really knew how to keep things under control.

For the record, this potential crisis is nothing to worry about…just a bunch of thoughts rolling around in my head that need to be sorted and organized. I’ll write more about that later. In the meantime, though, I’m gonna go back to cutting up small pieces of paper that I’ll ostensibly use in a lesson. Then I’ll proceed to making lists of easy-to-accomplish tasks that I can consequently complete and then check off my list–the 25 year-old version of me method of choice for dealing with stress.