X Marks the Spot*

I think everyone has coping mechanisms to help get from day to day.

For me, it used to be chocolate. I’m not sure if I can put into words how much I loved chocolate. I could eat it in the morning (Dear Inventor of Nutella, I love you. Affectionately, Me.), in the afternoon, I could eat it in the evening, and underneath the moon. (skinnamarinky dinky dink, anyone? Anyone?) Truth be told, I ate it waaaay too often and ate waaaay too much of it.

So, I broke up with chocolate in August.

Our separation has been going well– with only a few moments of weakness where I considered reconciliation. You’ll be glad to know that I held my ground.

When things got really tough in January and I wanted to crawl into a hole and pretend the mountain of assignments and looming 10-week placement was not there, I no longer had chocolate to get me through. I needed something, but I wasn’t sure what.

So, I looked, and I looked and I looked some more. I started exercising again, and while that is wonderful and I love it, it wasn’t quite what I needed for my daily boost. I also realized that I didn’t want to choose another food replacement (can anything really replace chocolate? Let’s be honest here…) although I have thoroughly been enjoying a ‘trip’ back to my elementary school days by rediscovering fruit snacks. (Transformers are good, Scooby Doo’s are best.)

My search ended with something small and unexpected–something people told me not to do because it would have the opposite effect of what I wanted. I needed something to help me put today behind me and focus my sights on tomorrow. What was it, you ask?

I discovered X’s.

In my overwhelmed state, I realized I needed something to show that even though I felt like I was standing still beneath all the work I needed to do, I was actually making progress. And so, I found a free online two-month calender, printed it off and slapped it on my desk where I could see it all the time. The first time I X’ed a completed day I wasn’t in love with it. By day two it was kinda fun. By day three I was hooked. All of a sudden I couldn’t wait to get home at night because it meant that I could cross out another day, meaning that I was one day closer to the end. Some people warned me that it might actually make time seem longer as I was now consciously watching each day go by, but it changed my whole world. All of a sudden I could see the progress I was making, and I cannot tell you how excited it makes me to see a whole month completely X’ed out… 28 little X’s make me deliriously happy. That’s 4 weeks of this placement DONE.

It probably sounds so silly to you, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to X out another day each time I come home from school. Just knowing that at the end of the day I can make another X makes it that much easier to get up in the morning. It has made the time go by SO fast. I’m hooked… I love looking at my pretty collection of X’s. :)

What do you do / need to get through the day?

Shop Girl*