Unleash Your Inner Crabby

Sometimes the crabby feeling simmers and I brush it off with a smile and move forward. Other times it percolates up slowly. I try to put a cap on it but it continues to build strength until it erupts like a geyser. Today was a geyser sort of day.

Needless to say, I don't always have the reign on my emotions that I need to function like I want to. So I have to stop and get my crabby on before I can move forward. I'm not allowed to unleash my crabby on the people at work. I chomp at the "be nice!" bit my leader has sidled me with and look for fruitful ways to express myself. This morning I dosed my crabby with caffeine(why did I think that would help?) and watched it grow into a full blown creature with rippling arms and giant hairy legs. It picked me up and ran me around the office a few times, and to be honest, I didn't fight it at all.

There are several constructive ways to express your crabby in a civilized office environment. Shredding, stapling, hole punching(I said hole punching not wall punching), and decline meetings people have tried very hard to schedule with your leader and watch them squirm. Another good one is running up and down the stairs(I work in a building with 10 floors). I find expressing myself this way empowers me. There is a certain amount of exhilaration in knowing you can run up 10 flights of stairs with full disclosure that you are harming no innocent bystanders in the process.

Once all your negative energy has been expressed you are free to sob in your fourth cup of coffee and eat French fries for lunch. Okay, I didn't eat French fries because that would be just WRONG, but I pretended to. They tasted like the fries I used to make and gobble with glee at Rax Restaurant. That delightful place went bankrupt back in 1990-something and they had The. Best. Fries. Ever.

What's interesting is that once your crabby has been fully vetted, you are free to return to your regularly scheduled program of feeling sane. And there's really very little carnage. After all, the stairs aren't going to complain that you stomped all over them and so what if you have to buy a new hole punch?

I'm not very good at plasticity. What I mean by that is, it is very difficult for me to pretend nothing is wrong. I have to find some way to express the anguish, frustration and general discomfort in my world or I will go crazy. I don't like that I'm this way and wish I were like normal people. Okay, I don't really wish I were like normal people because then I would be boring. But I'm no good at stuffing my feelings under my shirt. Besides, that makes me look pregnant. Today I found out I can express my crabby fruitfully. And it was so much fun.

Human beings emote. There's no stopping it. And one way or the other we have to manage our emotions. Managing our emotions does not need to involve chocolate, cookies or ice cream. In fact, if you really want to rebel, drinking 3 32 ounce cups of water. That'll keep you hopping. Just remember that when you work in a civilized office environment, stapling your co-workers and punching holes in your earlobes might be frowned upon.