I often find myself in one of those groups where you break the ice by going around and answering a “getting to know you” question. You know the kind I mean. Something like, “What’s your favorite holiday?” Or “Would you rather spend one night at The Plaza or a week at a campground?” Or, what is perhaps the ultimate question, “Fat Elvis or thin?”

    Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for getting to know you. But, tending to overthink things as I do, for me some questions do more than just break the ice. Instead, they break off a glacial ice floe, creating a dangerous flood of thought and obsessive mulling that completely upsets my delicate intellectual balance.

    One such question is this: What do you do to relieve stress?

    I was asked that ice-breaker question in some group about 15 years ago. I can tell you that after I stressed out for a while trying to figure out what to say, I finally came up with this answer: nothing. 

    Yup, the 24-year-old version of me didn’t really do anything to relieve stress, even though, as young and kidless as I was back then, I’m sure that I had plenty of it. But I’ll be darned if I can figure out where in the world it came from. 

    For these many years, the “stress reliever” question has been on my mind. After realizing that my stress sponge never really got wrung out, I tried to identify exactly what stress relievers work for me. Here are some possibilities:

    • Shopping (but not shopping for a new furnace).

    • Walking in the rain (but not if the rain is coming from the basement ceiling … or dripping into the family room … or leaking through the sunroof).

    • Cooking (but not when the only things I have in the house are pickles, Hi-C drink mix and unsalted butter).

    • Running (but certainly not running after the school bus or after a toddler who’s stepped into traffic or after my miniature dachshund whom I just took out without a leash, in my nightgown, and who has just taken off after a squirrel who’s evidently headed for the border).

    When I’m really stressed out, I clear the decks. I postpone everything that’s not urgent (like laundry, dishes, and in the worst cases, bathing) and focus on what really matters (like the time earlier this month, when I squeezed a 45-minute trip to a local produce stand into a 35-minute window to assuage the guilt that I was feeling over a semi-radical “loca-vore” book that I had just stopped reading because it made me feel like I shouldn’t buy California-grown strawberries, eat tomatoes out of season, or drink milk ever again).

    When I’m really, really stressed out, I just abandon ship. I cancel out on my commitments, buy take-out, lay low, and contemplate the questions that really matter in life. 

    And I’m pretty sure that “What would you rather splurge on, outerwear or underwear?” is not one of them.