Chapter Three: Finding your Outlets


4/21/17


     Sometimes I wonder if other people have ever felt like being a different person for a few minutes just to get out of their own head. Or is it just me? I doubt it. Anyone who knows me knows how scatterbrained I can be, and also how much I can drive myself crazy obsessing over things that shouldn't even matter. I can't help it, it's just how I am. One of the outlets I use to escape my own brain is music. I like to drive in the car with the music blaring, windows open, dancing around and probably looking like a complete idiot. I also like to sit in my room with the lights off, headphones on, eyes closed.  It depends on the mood. I like to make it so loud that I can't hear anything else, including my own thoughts (probably not good for my ears, but who cares?).

    Also depending on my mood, I like to listen to a very large variety of music. Honestly, pretty much anything. Love songs, cute songs, rap songs, heavy metal, country (VERY LIMITED COUNTRY), classical, rock, but mostly what I'm interested in is songs I can sing to. Whatever, I'm telling you I'll listen to it. Which is annoying sometimes, because when I listen to music with other people they're way pickier than I am and it bothers me pretty deeply. Probably more than it should. Music is also something I'm pretty passionate about. Any person who has ever spent any time with me knows that I'm always singing, or humming. I always have a song, or 10, stuck in my head at all times, and 9 times out of 10, I end up getting the song stuck in someone else's head. Then I have to listen to the song to get it out of my head, and then all of a sudden a song I haven't listened to in months or even years pops into my head, and the cycle repeats itself. Sometimes, I even listen to one song on repeat all day long. I'm annoying, huh? In all seriousness, music is the perfect escape for me. It makes me feel alive, and dead, all at the same time. That sounds weird, but it's the only way I know how to explain it.

     Another outlet I use is art. I like pretty much anything artsy-fartsy. Drawing, painting, papier-mâché, sewing, knitting, doodling, bedazzling, coloring, whatever. I get all involved in it and I have so much fun with whatever I'm doing. Creating, I think, is what I was made for. There's just something so satisfying about seeing something that looks cool and knowing that you made it and you worked so hard on it. I've always been that kind of art geek. I took art classes in high school because they were pretty much mandatory, but I always took them so much more seriously than most of the other kids and people were surprised sometimes when I worked so hard on a project. I'm really lucky that it comes naturally to me, because I know some people who can barely draw a stick figure. I was always that kid who saved my school notebooks because there were so many precious doodles in the margins surrounding the boring math problems. My favorite part is when people ask me to draw or paint things for them. I enjoy it so much because it gives me ideas and I love to see their faces when they see it for the first time. My best friends have their bedroom walls pretty much covered in my art, it's pretty awesome. 

     Oh, but I can't forget about reorganizing and redecorating. That's one of my favorite things to do. Hanging things on the wall, rearranging posters, moving furniture, reorganizing my makeup and jewelry, pretty much anything like that. There's something about having a clean, neat and orderly space to hang out in. When everything is in its place, I sit on my nicely made bed and look around and smile. Then I go to bed and wake up and everything is unorganized. I don't know how it happens. One day I clean my room and the next day there's pants strewn across the lamps and bras hanging from the curtain rods. How???!?!?!? It's okay though, because then I get to fix it again.

    I hope some of these things spoke to you today, I really do. I didn't have much in the ways of ideas for what to write about, but I made a pact with myself to write SOMETHING every day. Maybe some of you have been looking for some kind of outlet for your frustrations, or just to shut off your brain for a while. I'd highly recommend the blasting of the music into your ears. If you're one of those people who have sensitive ears or your panties in a bunch, maybe a softer, quieter approach would be better. Find a comfortable spot, whether it's on your front porch with a glass of vodk- I mean, tea... Or if it's in your favorite chair in your living room, or your comfy bed buried under your blankets. Maybe it's on the toilet, I don't judge. But just find that spot that makes you calm and happy, plug in your headphones and listen to your favorite songs.

Close your eyes, and try to immerse yourself in the music. Forget about your problems, your unhappiness, your job, your friends, your spouse, even your cat. Just listen to the music and focus on yourself. Lose the thoughts. I know it sounds hard, but take it from a person like me, whose brain is always working a mile a minute. It can work if you let it. Hell, I'm doing it right now, as I write. Maybe you could tell that this blog post is just a stream of consciousness and I'm just letting my hands type whatever they want. You'll never know.

xx

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