It's been a stress-fest at work lately. Lots of emotion, lots of it negative, lots of it directed at me.
It makes it harder to stop my mind from whirring away at home, scrambling the day's conflicts to try and make them come out differently and blending in a hefty measure of rehearsal for tomorrow's conflicts.
I notice that I have begun to clench and unclench the fingers of my right hand, quickly, nervously. My mother does this. She has done so always, as far as I can remember. And I've always hated it for showing, like steam spurting out of a pressure-cooker valve, how close she was to exploding. She recently acquired a wrist brace to protect her from the carpal tunnel syndrome that her constant clenching has resulted in. I am on that path.
Unless: I take up drinking. I see now why it's so appealing for a working parent. Nothing like a shwack of alcohol to silence the yammering brain AND (bonus) give one the sillies (which actually improve the bedtime/bathtime routine with Clara and Winton dramatically). I suspect there's a law of diminishing returns with the alcohol though.
Maybe more exercise?
And knitting to keep the hands busy?
(I could knit at work meetings: that'd be distracting.)
Clutching at straws over here (and clutching/twitching all the time now, apparently).
I like the crossword puzzle type of challenge that lies in following a knitting pattern. I have knit so much that my hands ache afterwards. The more relaxing and hand-occupying variant would be knitting something like a scarf where you don't have to count stitches or look up any tricky techniques while you go. Good luck with finding a sweet spot whether it's pulling loops or learning castanet routines.
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