Shooting Stress

After spending my entire weekend hunched over my computer, working feverishly on maniacal minutia to prepare some medical marketing tactics for bureaucratic drudgery that is the pharmaceutical industry medical-legal review process, something I always akin to the Wonderland caucus-race, I toiled in my office until nearly midnight last night. Bleary-eyed, hair oily and frazzled, I drove home, only to be pulled over by a police officer, for the first time ever, for yet another piece of, ultimately, inane paper-pushing bureaucracy. Naturally, my emotional stability or lack thereof already tenuous and questionable, this sent me into a full-blown mental melt down. Thankfully, at least as far as documentation violations go, all can be resolved with some cold, hard cash for the state. As of late, I feel as though I am constantly drenched, wet and sopping, but running in the crashes of the tide, hoping that the faster and the more rigorous my gait, the more likely I am to dry.

Today, after a teleconference meeting with one of our most beloved but demanding clients, one of my colleagues offered a suggestion: team kick-boxing and cardio-boxing lessons. Essentially, release of our emotional aggression and aggravation, metaphorically mashing meat, making bruises, bruising our own knuckles in a sort of masochistic, self-deprecating manifestation of inner turmoil to superficial physical distress. She has a valid idea, though, perhaps, for me, the incorrect outlet. Shattering glass, preferably something expensive, comes to mind as more personally cathartic. As does shooting, a gun large and long, ideally unwieldy almost to my inexperienced grip, something wild and bucking and chaotic and, with the right guidance, controllable. Consolable. Learning to shoot skeet, or really any gun, has been a dream of mine for years. Perhaps, with this insurmountable mounting stress, this will be my year.

(image taken from A Well Traveled Woman)