On Being Crabby

If you're not familiar with Krista Tippett's On Being, allow me to encourage you to click on the link.  

The On Being Project focuses on "tools for the art of living."  It is about as far removed as possible from the Project that subsumed me earlier this week: On Being Crabby.

In the rearview mirror years of my life, I spent way too much time being crabby.  The small things got under my skin and burrowed their way into my soul, often in record time.  There they took up residence, remaining and welcoming in all the other small things that I permitted to get under my skin.  And in retrospect, it took way too much time for me to work my way past On Being Crabby.

Fortunately, for the most part, the On Being (Perpetually) Crabby Project is a thing of the past.  So much so, in fact, it now takes me a while to figure out a name for  this emotion that is just bugging the bejeezus out of me.  What is this?  I'll ask myself.  Why do I just want to punch something, even knowing that won't solve anything.

Then, the moment of clarity and remembrance.  Ah.  You are feeling crabby.  And this week, I was.  C-R-A-B-B-Y.  Okay, now what.  What's causing the crabbiness?  
  • Have you been taking your medication?
  • Are you hangry?
  • Are you tired?
If the answer to the above are yes, no and no, next step is to dig a little deeper.
  • Have you had time for yourself and if so, what have you been doing with it?
I can only be filled so long before I seriously miss feeling fulfilled.  And there are a bundle of ways I can feel fulfilled as long as I take the proverbial bull by the horns, pull one out and follow through.

For this episode of On Being Crabby, the answer lie in needing time for myself.  The Polar Vortex had many side effects, one of which was being housebound.  That made finding that time for myself challenging and after a couple days, it contributed to being C-R-A-B-B-Y.

And I don't like the feeling.  Entirely too unproductive.

So I started a new crochet project.  Exercised.  Finished one book, started another.  Thought about this blog for a couple days.  Finally wrote it.

What do you do when those negative emotions boil up?  They're a part of life; the little stressors build, the larger stressors hold over us like a giant umbrella.  There are days, truthfully, when I decide I'm just going to ride out the episode of On Being Crabby with the expectation that this, too, shall pass.

Like the Polar Vortex.  It's above zero here today.  Driving to the grocery store, I saw kids on the playground for recess.  We're hearty souls.  We can push out the crabbys.

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