Two nights a week I am the lobby parent for my youngest’s dance studio. I’m here to watch the door, making sure no one comes in that isn’t supposed to be here. I answer parents’ questions, to the best of my abilities. I am a place for the teachers to send children who are having a rough time in class. Basically, I am the jack of many trades.

Multiple classes are happening simultaneously. That means there are multiple levels of music happening at all times. Then there are the students coming and going, and the parents dropping off and picking up. All of this means that it gets very loud in the studio. Even in the lobby.

One of those nights is ballet production night, where multiple students are learning multiple parts. So there are often kids practicing in the open areas as well as the actual studios. As I am writing this, there are kids in both studios and in both open areas, working on their parts. There are anywhere between one and four different songs from the show playing at one time. And they often repeat the same part over and over while they’re working on the part.

All of that is to say that I am overwhelmed by the amount of noise in the studio right now. My brain can’t focus on much of anything and my anxiety level is rising. I had plans to write about something else, but this is all I can think about right now. Since I did say this blog would be where I did my mind dumps, I figured this would be appropriate.

I am doing my breathing exercises to bring my anxiety levels back down. I took a quick, five-minute “walk” outside, which helped tremendously. How do you handle things that overwhelm you? What is your go-to trick for calming down?