At one of my jobs, I was a part of a pretty important pitch team. And while I knew my section of the presentation inside and out, I was still nervous about presenting. I sat with other colleagues as we waited to be called into the meeting room for our turn. As the moments ticked on, I was getting more and more jittery. And I wasn't the only one – everyone had their own way to pass the time: someone was pacing, another reading over his notes, someone else chugging water (I swear she had three bottles in two minutes.), and someone else kept showing us memes from Facebook. Seeing - and likely feeling - the stress, our boss encouraged us to stand up and stretch. In the large lobby we were tucked over in a corner and fairly hidden away. Our small group of four, wearing our suits and smart dresses, gathered around our boss. She took a deep breath in and channeling her own mellow – yet empowerment method - she popped into her "power pose". Her arms were stiff in the air in a “V” shape, opposite to her legs in the same shape but upside down. Her head was back towards the sky, her eyes were closed, and in a soothing, breathy voice she was telling us to feel confident and strong. Like I also do when I am in exercise groups with my eyes closed, I opened just one eye and looked around to see if everyone else was in the power pose. Everyone was – but I just wasn’t feeling it. I quietly sat down and reached into my purse and fished around for a medicine bottle. When I pulled it out, everyone heard the rattle and looked over. All I said while twisting the lid was that “yoga moves and breathing was one way to deal with stress, but this was mine.” And I popped a Xanax without regret or hesitation.
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