Sunday, September 28, 2014

Stress & Legos

So, I've been stressed the last few weeks.

Oh, it's nothing too horrible. It's just that in my infinite wisdom, I scheduled my first half marathon to be three days after my first concert of the school year, and to top it all off, I have to get a dental filling this week. And the 49ers have been losing. And it's evaluation time at work. And...life. Just life.

Several weeks ago, I bought a tiny Lego set so I could build a tiny airplane for my classroom. "Haha," I thought to myself. "An excuse to play with Legos!" Aaron had about a gazillion of them when we were growing up--enough to fill one of those boxes that copy paper comes in. We used to haul it to Grandma and Grandpa's house, dump it all over the living room floor, and entertain ourselves for hours. 

It had been years since I'd built anything with Legos. I imagine Aarons are either collecting dust in his attic in Idaho or long given to charity. Building that little airplane woke something in me, and I found myself perusing the Lego aisles every time I was at Target.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought three small "3 in one" sets so I could make the whole train.


Yesterday, I went to Target with the specific goal of buying more Legos. I bought a bigger set this time, and spent a good hour building an awesome tree house.






There's something relaxing about following the instructions in the book and watching it all come together. The familiar clicking as pieces go together brings back happy memories of childhood, and playing with my revered big brother. It's hard to feel stressed when sticking a tiny walkie-talkie in the hand of a Lego figure. 

Maybe it's silly and childish, but I don't care. At some point I'll carefully dismantle the set and put all the pieces in Ziploc bags to give to charity. Or I'll keep them all and build something different when life has me feeling a little overwhelmed. 

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