I am swimming in a sea of unattainable ideas.  I float like a mermaid in the deep blue.  My hair, long and dark, surrounds me swaying slowly to the rhythm of the water.  There are rainbow reflecting bubbles surrounding me.  Each filled with scrolls with detailed calligraphy.  Lists.  Outlined impeccable lists.  Each a labor of love and mindfulness and desire.  But I simply float.  Still.  As if dead in the water but my eyes are alive and focused.  Set fiercely on the shore.   

I plan out my dream studio.  I schedule out how to volunteer at Lucy's kindergarten class that is over a year away.  I list out every piece of photographic equipment I could possibly ever need with price and priority marked on the sidelines.  I have a literal notebook of compiled Better Homes and Gardens tear outs and Crate and Barrel catalog pictures for my house.  I spend hours with my to~do list everyday, terrified I might forget something urgent, but mostly paralyzed by the list of things I "should" get done.  My planner is always with me, trumped only when my camera is in hand.  I waste so much time this way, lost in my own head.  Swimming in dreamland, planning, thinking, painting perfection with my mind's paintbrush.  It is the reason I am not DOING more. 

Last week I wrote a short to~do list on the same paper as my grocery list. 
I lost it at Kroger and went back into the store with my kids to go aisle by aisle to find it.  The relief I felt when the soft, thinned, wrinkly, lined paper pressed firmly in my fingertips was palpable.  What was so important you ask?   Here it is:

Laundry
Sallie Mae Bill
Call Discover Card for lower rate
Deliver Girl Scout cookies
Take vitamin
clean out basement

That's it.  So what if I lost it right?  It seems a simple list of any kind makes a direct correlation to my level of anxiety.  

If I can't buy a new dress, write down "new dress" 

 I'll feel better about it.  That at least I will remember someday that I wanted one.  Right? 

This is CRAZY. 

So to further relieve my new anxiety that I am CRAZY, I ponder other women's strategies to reduce anxiety. 
One friend just does it all.  She never says no, she never stops moving.  She feels less anxiety when she is disappointing no one, so she simply never rests. 
Another asks for help often without guilt (this is a complete mystery to me) and manages her anxiety with a helpful community of neighbors friends and husband (this is remarkably healthy and yet somewhat bizarre to me)
Others exercise.  Food for thought. 
I know someone who will surely read this who shops.  OFTEN.  
Some women eat. 

 We've all got something, right?

                 What do you do? 

I once had a supervisor make this statement in my annual employment review, "I know anxiety is just part of your personality, but..." I have no idea what else she said i was so struck by her accusation (that's how I heard it then).  I had never considered myself to be anxious.  I was downright insulted.  Funny what we can learn about ourselves with age. 

So other than listing, I find pulling out my silver penny brings me out of my task focused head and into my spiritual heart.  Spending time in fairy land with you and photographing the magic of the first years of life, the bubble years. 

Here's a moment in time for you to forget your worries, stresses, or menial chore lists.  I hope your dreams stay big and your worries stay small.  Enjoy.