Finding the Perfect Pillows

It's that time when my summer gets interrupted with the barrage of Back to School. Even if I avoid the stores, which I am, my mailbox is full of coupons and sale reminders. This pressure that I must have every item purchased, necessary or not, and every item on the to-do/want-to-do list complete because school is starting; and so slow summer life basking in simplicity must come to an end. And so, summer life is eaten away by worries of getting the checklist complete and worries of the coming unknown.

I find in myself when I'm unsettled that all of a sudden unimportant things start to bother me and need to be fixed. Unimportant things like, the pillows on my couch are all wrong and I need to find the perfect pillows that can withstand the destruction of my littles and make my heart happy. I picked out an absurd amount of books for myself to escape in at the library today. Such a large and heavy stack that I dropped them twice. My go to solution for being overwhelmed is that materials are going to make me feel better. Yet since, I'm writing this post, I assure you that materials do not solve anything and perhaps are not even a helpful bandaid.

I recognize this pattern in my life and decided a What's Bothering Me List needed to be made. A list of reactions to the pressures and yet another list of helpful behaviors. Acknowledge the worries, understand how I've tried to deal with the worries and focus on doing the activities on the What Does Make Me Happy list.

And that list does not include finding the perfect pillows for my couch.