I've always been a bit of what my family would call "an emotional sponge", sucking up the joys and pains and sorrows of the world around me. I have been this way for as long as I can remember. I may have been the only 8 year old child who watched Walter Kronkite every single night just to keep tabs on the status of the world (and then lay awake at night anxiously worrying about it). This cumbersome habit has continued into adulthood. I can be brought to an emotional standstill just by reading the newspaper. I suppose this kind of hyper-emotional-sensitivity (note: probably not a real psychological term) comes with the territory of being a creative type. We tend to visualize things more vividly. More life-like. We internalize and apply it to ourselves and that can be scary.
Older and wiser, I now know I can use my emotional sponge-itude (again, probably not a real pyschological term) to my advantage in my art, in my parenting and in my compassion (and tolerance) for my fellow humans. So in honor of my sponge-like ways, I present the first illustration in my personal series about emotion. Illustrator's note: Some (or all) of the anxieties listed may (or may not) be real anxieties experienced every so often (weekly) by yours truly (maybe).