Breaking Down and Building Up Again

This has been an interesting month. I have run the gamut of emotion in the past 30 days, and it is wearing on me. It has also been full of affirmations from unexpected places, opportunities to think differently than before, and creative surges. It often happens this way in my life - the most challenging things spur on the best things.

I have been spending quite a bit of time on TikTok lately. It fills the space. I enjoy watching cats do catty things and I get easily sucked in. I am working on decreasing my access, but I really enjoy watching. My page has been full of predictions lately. You know the ones - "I didn't put any labels on this, so if you are seeing it, it is meant for you." They are all promising prosperity. Should I buy a lottery ticket?

The point of this particular post is to realize (for myself) that there is often good that comes from going through the not so happy parts of life. This realization, which happens every year about this time, helps me to remember that the breaking down parts of life help me recognize the building up times. 

This appears to be a building up time - with the expectation that there will be another round of down times coming before summer is over. There is heat and humidity in our near future. Even with the knowledge that there will be another time when I am likely to break down, I am enjoying the creative surge that is happening as well as the ability to think more clearly about things that I want. 

So, what does building up entail?

I have ideas for things again. I am motivated to do something other than stare at TikTok, and those motivations come from want rather than necessity. I will find myself wanting to clean the bathroom or the desk rather than dragging myself out of bed to move enough things to be able to walk across the room. 

I am ready to start doing some things that I have planned for a long time. I started off this building up time by creating a template for lyric sheets and will be releasing them on Teachers Pay Teachers this week. The first one is already up and active, along with the 42 other files that I have in my store. 

My Ideas Book is bursting with more concepts and projects that I want to get published and up on the store as soon as possible. I have a new month's worth of printing available on Monday, so I have lots of things that I can make over the next 12 days. I want to find the boxes of materials that I had prepped for the Midwestern Region Conference back in 2020 so I can inventory it, finish things that I left undone, and create new things for my goal of exhibiting in March 2023. I also have things to make for my own music therapy clients. The new binder system is almost ready to be printed and put into binders. I found the folders that I had bought for this project last weekend while I was looking for my music therapy journals, so all I have to do print and laminate the pages. 

At the same time, I do not want to get into my usual pattern of making plans and then failing to do them and feeling bad at the end of the break. I just want to get some stuff. My yard guy will be coming at some point to chop down the weeds. I will try to change things up around here a bit, but I am just going to go with my instincts. It is nice to have instincts again.

Happy Saturday. I have about 20 minutes before I want to go to the pharmacy and pick up some treats for this week. See you tomorrow for Synthesis Sunday. I think I will make another lyric sheet file until my departure time.