Getting ourselves together

Untitled, 2016, GRIS1.

My relationship with beginnings is ambiguous: a mixture of expectation and anxiety. The beginning of the year is a phase in which these feelings get enhanced. I wake up early and just think. At these times, small, everyday problems are the ones that get me the most.

How am I going to solve this? What if I don't solve that? What if everything goes wrong?

This is the spiral of anxiety. When I notice myself in it, I try to get out. For that, I try to think about the long term, which ends up helping to make sense of everything.

I'm doing this for the good of my family. I have to solve that to grow as a person. If that other thing goes wrong, it won't be the end of it. If I have no problems to solve, my life will not be fun.

It calms me down and helps me to maintain good relations with those around me, including followers and curious people on social media. When I get myself together, I don't feel the need to be aggressive. I create fewer problems for myself and others; which allows me to invest in a positive reflection on the problems that I already have.

This English expression “get yourself together” is very meaningful to me. It represents that we are built by pieces. These pieces can get detached from us. Each isolated problem is a detachment that impacts our balance. So getting together means treating ourselves as a whole, including the problems. Getting together is finding those meanings that make everything more bearable and fun.

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This is the first post written in English for the website. I write it in a time of good changes and hope for great adventures. How lucky can we be?

Art by GRIS1.