mouse in a teacup

I bought a sketch book and some pencils the other day. It was not a leisurely purchase, it was a necessary purchase.

I'm not a pencil and paper artist, if you want to be technical. In fact, I think my drawings are somewhat child-like and (I think) rather uninteresting. However, I was compelled to go to the store and purchase these items, and have had this incredibly deep need to have these things close at hand. I drew some pictures, nothing really special, and there was no epiphany hidden in the images, but I needed to see them.

It is my life raft of sorts. Sometimes the words are too much. There are too many in such a small space and I can't filter them out or understand them, so I hide from them, and maybe that is what I was doing. Hiding from them in the sketch book, knowing I needed some sort of relief, a valve to let out the pressure, and coloring was about as much as I could handle.

I can seldom figure out what I'm doing anymore from one day to the next. I know I have to wake up, shower, get dressed, put makeup on, do my hair, tend the children go to work. I have all the mindless details perfectly in place, but I am somewhere else. Somewhere very far away desperately trying to find a path back to my life. It is times like this that I'm grateful for so many details to distract my mind, although I'm not sure if it is the distraction in which I find solace. It could be the simple motion of the actions, keeping the body moving because being too still hurts.

I'm a lucky person in many respects, and I have a lot to be grateful for. I know life is just hard, for all of us, and that getting through it fairly unscathed the point of existence. Sometimes I feel like a mouse in a teacup trying to stay afloat in a raging ocean.... now.. where is my sketch book?