Peppermints

Hello, friends.

Today was stressful. We all have those days - days that we question everything we thought we knew, days that we wonder if we're supposed to be doing what we're doing.

Today was also the day I received perhaps the strangest compliment of my life: "Mary, you're like a peppermint."

You see, if you're stressed, you often have a loop going in your head. You can't stop thinking about the thing that's stressing you out. Often, what it takes to break that loop is a really good distraction - like a peppermint, for example. Peppermints have an overpowering taste and smell. You pop one of those in your mouth and it's hard to think about anything else. Because of that, peppermints can help you calm down.

Another thing that can help you calm down is a person. I went out to lunch with a similarly stressed individual today, and he said afterwards that listening to me talk about my daughter was like a peppermint- a distraction from the situation that helped him think rationally about it. I can relate to that easily. When I was in college, Lindsey and I had a code for when one of us was stressed and needed to talk. We would ask to go for a walk down the bluff. By the time we made it down and back up those two hundred steps, we felt better every time.

I think that's the moral of my day. When you're stressed, find a peppermint. Or a person. Or both. :)