Before I go any further with my “campaigns”, I want to make one thing very clear: Glenn’s appearances as my long-suffering husband and Manager of Inventory are made with his full cooperation and permission.
The caricature is exaggerated. The support behind it is very real.
Glenn is supportive of everything I do, even when he is bamboozled, confused and not entirely sure where I am coming from—which, to be fair, can be quite a lot of the time. He doesn’t have to follow every turn of my thinking to be in my corner. Although I suspect he would occasionally appreciate a map.
The older I get, the more I realise I have a very busy brain. There is usually an idea forming, a question demanding attention or something ordinary quietly turning into a project. What begins as “I wonder…” can gather considerable momentum before anyone else in the house knows we have started.
Perhaps neurodivergent is a word I might use to describe that. These days, I am less concerned with how the world chooses to categorise me and more interested in understanding how my mind works—and giving it something worthwhile to do.
When I was in Year 12, a friend said to me, “You have a questing mind.” It happened to be the theme we were studying in English at the time, but I think that description has held me well through the years.
A questing mind. Always asking, exploring, making connections and wondering what might happen if I tried something a little differently.
Which brings me to the stories.
Brené Brown uses the phrase “The story I’m telling myself…” to help us recognise the interpretations we bring to situations, and how those interpretations influence our feelings and behaviour. That idea resonates with me. My brain can produce quite an elaborate narrative around something I have been putting off, particularly when it feels difficult, tedious or just a little beyond what I confidently know how to do.
These campaigns are visualisations of the stories I tell myself—often to my own great amusement—as I tackle that “hard”.
Uploading products to a website becomes an achievement worthy of an angelic glow. The growing inventory acquires a manager with a magnificently expressive face. A collection of unfinished jobs becomes the next episode in our household’s ongoing candle-making saga.
Giving the task a character, a storyline and something to laugh about helps me approach it differently. I can still find it hard, but I can also find it funny. Sometimes that is enough to get me moving.
Of course, as the person creating these images, I have somehow secured the role of the angelic candle maker. Glenn has been appointed Manager of Inventory.
A remarkable coincidence, that.
Behind the raised eyebrows and theatrical resignation is a husband who gives me room to follow an idea, even when its destination is unclear. And behind the angelic expression is a woman who is probably still avoiding one more website description.
These campaigns give my questing mind somewhere to play while the rest of me gets on with the job.