Making small things happen
There's a funny thing that happens when depression and stress get together. They start to gang up on you. They encourage and exacerbate each other in a nasty little circle.
When that happens, as I've been dealing with constantly for the last several months, it's hard to get excited about crafts... or games... or anything else I usually love to do. There have been nights when I get home from work and can't bring myself to do anything but go to bed.
Recently there have been a couple of things that have been helping. One is an indie game called "Stardew Valley" - it was released in Feburary, and is a Harvest Moon / Rune Factory analog. In Stardew Valley, your character inherits a farm from their grandfather and decides to leave the corporate system behind. You clear land, plant crops, go fishing and foraging, and get to know the townsfolk. Each character has a backstory that they slowly reveal as you build relationship points with them. There are small 'quests' of a sort that can be done, but no real urgency. It's a very relaxing game that doesn't put any pressure on the player - if you want to spend an entire season doing nothing but fishing, you can. If you want to build a bunch of jam makers and create your own strawberry jam empire, you can do that too. It's been a really big help to me, and very calming, on days when I can't handle the thought of tackling my usual RPGs. I should say a really huge thank you to Erin Jeffreys Hodges, who introduced me to the game in the first place!
The other thing that was a huge help was realizing not every project has to be a massive one. Right now I have several blankets in the works, but lately haven't been able to face working on them. It felt too overwhelming in a time when I'm already constantly overwhelmed at work. That's why I started working on some small things, which are going quickly and give a sense of completion that's really been missing everywhere else in my life.
These tags are 31 st. tall by 18 st. wide. I found an old DMC cross stitch booklet, circa 1969, with a lot of Art Noveau style patterns that're easy to work up (only 2-4 colors each) and really very beautiful. My plan is to find some heavy paper in a complementary color scheme to back the tags with.
For the brown tags, I'm using green, pink, cream and tan. I'm actually planning to get another package or two (they came with 12 tags, 4 of each color) and use the white ones with red sparkly floss for Christmas, to match the paper and ribbons I got on clearance last year; the rest I'll just keep around until they come in handy.
It's so incredibly reassuring to be able to make small things happen. Sometimes I really do feel like the world is much too big for me, and having a tiny project that I can actually get finished helps more than imaginable.
When that happens, as I've been dealing with constantly for the last several months, it's hard to get excited about crafts... or games... or anything else I usually love to do. There have been nights when I get home from work and can't bring myself to do anything but go to bed.
Recently there have been a couple of things that have been helping. One is an indie game called "Stardew Valley" - it was released in Feburary, and is a Harvest Moon / Rune Factory analog. In Stardew Valley, your character inherits a farm from their grandfather and decides to leave the corporate system behind. You clear land, plant crops, go fishing and foraging, and get to know the townsfolk. Each character has a backstory that they slowly reveal as you build relationship points with them. There are small 'quests' of a sort that can be done, but no real urgency. It's a very relaxing game that doesn't put any pressure on the player - if you want to spend an entire season doing nothing but fishing, you can. If you want to build a bunch of jam makers and create your own strawberry jam empire, you can do that too. It's been a really big help to me, and very calming, on days when I can't handle the thought of tackling my usual RPGs. I should say a really huge thank you to Erin Jeffreys Hodges, who introduced me to the game in the first place!
The other thing that was a huge help was realizing not every project has to be a massive one. Right now I have several blankets in the works, but lately haven't been able to face working on them. It felt too overwhelming in a time when I'm already constantly overwhelmed at work. That's why I started working on some small things, which are going quickly and give a sense of completion that's really been missing everywhere else in my life.
These tags are 31 st. tall by 18 st. wide. I found an old DMC cross stitch booklet, circa 1969, with a lot of Art Noveau style patterns that're easy to work up (only 2-4 colors each) and really very beautiful. My plan is to find some heavy paper in a complementary color scheme to back the tags with.
For the brown tags, I'm using green, pink, cream and tan. I'm actually planning to get another package or two (they came with 12 tags, 4 of each color) and use the white ones with red sparkly floss for Christmas, to match the paper and ribbons I got on clearance last year; the rest I'll just keep around until they come in handy.
It's so incredibly reassuring to be able to make small things happen. Sometimes I really do feel like the world is much too big for me, and having a tiny project that I can actually get finished helps more than imaginable.
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