Brain Vacations

I have a love/hate relationship with my imagination. I’ve been relying a little bit too heavily on it for the past couple of weeks and even had to bring it up with my young and gorgeous counselor when I last saw her. See the problem is that not only does my imagination supply me with a fairly consistent creative list of things to do and try, but it also, I think is the source of some of my biggest addictions.

I know, you are probably sick and tired of hearing about all the weird things I’m addicted too, Food, chocolate, de-cluttering, B.A.B, and most recently reading. How in the blazing’ bowling balls is imagination related to those you might be wondering? Well I finally figured that out with my Y & G Counselor’s help. It was one of those Ah-Ha, Wow, Bulls-eye, Light-Bulb, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding moments for me.

We figured out that I rely on my imaginary comforts when things get a bit stressful at home or with certain people. And when you’ve got a house of eight active and loud human beings, who wouldn’t want some inner peace and quiet every now and again? I have also never been a conflict/confronter type of a person. When things headed south for me as a kid, which was rarely, seeing as I came from a very functional family; I would escape to the world of my imagination. Heading south meant someone in the house was arguing or I would see neighbor’s go off to play with their friends but not me. I was, I think, a quiet kid and I never had a best friend until I met my husband. I had friends but not the close let’s-share-clothes and talk-on-the-phone-all-night-long type of friends. Let me clarify something; no I don’t share clothes and talk on the phone with my husband all night long. He’s better than that type of friend. So anyway, as a child, I made up some imaginary friends. Now most of these friends were created by someone else I just let my imagination borrow them for playtime. Like swinging through the huge willow tree with Tarzan or building a tree-house out back by the chicken coop with Fritz from Swiss Family Robinson, or creating a cardboard cockpit in my bedroom with Apollo from the original Battlestar Galactica, my friends all kept me company when I was a kid if it got lonely. And if they couldn’t play then I would pick up a Black Stallion book and forget everything and get lost in that world.

Fast Forward twenty plus a bit more years and I’m a much larger version of myself but something’s just don't change. I still don’t like conflict or confrontation. As a mom I can’t really walk away when things go south with my kid’s. I get to be the referee, the decoy, the lawyer, judge and jury, counselor and sometimes jailer. There isn’t really the opt-out option when the kids brawl. But when the crisis has passed and things calm down I really don’t want to think about what happened and that’s when I turn to my comfort zone. My problem is once I turn on my imagination world it’s really hard to turn off.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life, my family, my husband and even the rainy Northwest weather. But sometimes it’s great to focus on something that has nothing to do with any of the above. I call it my brain vacation. In the last month my brain has taken an extended vacation to a delicious place called Chocolateville, Build-A-Bear and most recently to the Twilight Zone. Well not the actual Twilight Zone but to the Twilight book series by Stephanie Meyers. I got sucked in after it was recommended by some family members, (THANK YOU VERY MUCH with a load of sarcasm). Darn-it if I didn’t read all three books within four days and if that wasn’t enough I enjoyed them (Very GUILTILY, I might add) so much, I did what? Insanely I re-read them all again. Now come-on!!!, there is something definitely wrong with a sleep-deprived, do-it-all, mom of a crazy half dozen, who would rather stay up until 2 a.m. to re-read something she just read less than a week ago rather than re-charge. Not only was I reading the series but I was taking mental notes of trying to take a field-trip to my backyard of Forks, WA, and La Push’s First Beach to visit locations mentioned in the book. So label me hopeless and pathetic with a Capital P.

Thank goodness I held onto my Young & Gorgeous counselor even after my 20/20 weight loss program had ended. She always makes me feel great about myself. After I tell her about my O.D.D. child and everything going on in my life she thinks I could definitely benefit from some needed brain vacations. Wa-hoo! However she is making me schedule them so they don’t get in the way of self-care: sleep, exercise, you know the basics and of course, eating right (Sigh, I guess that means no more visit’s to tremor inducing Chocolateville).

I’m doing a lot better with avoiding Chocolate and I haven’t been to B.A.B. in almost two weeks and if you haven’t entered my B.A.B contest please scroll down and help me avoid that place. I think I might make my husband take the Twilight books to work and get me the Book on CD so that I can only take a brain vacation while driving my kids to and fro. My, doesn’t that sound safe? Hopefully it won’t encourage me to drive more because I can’t afford too many trips to the gas station when it costs me $146 to fill up my Tank-mobile’s tank. Ugh!

Now I just need to figure out how to get my brain to stop advertising those appealing and welcome brain vacations while I’m on the job.

Hey and thanks for reading about Me and my insufferably long brain vacations.