Does anyone else need a pensive?

Thank heaven for J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter books. Not only are they so entertaining and engaging, so many words and situations are now very familiar to me. An example: the 'pensive', which represents a place to put excess thoughts when you are feeling mentally stretched. How I would benefit from such a device/process! I have a plethora of memories that I would love to offload. Or, how about having a house elf? Never do housework again! Wouldn't that be wonderful? Or, how about entering a dark room and murmuring 'lumose'? So many applications that I am forever thinking about them.

The most important analogy for me is the wish for a pensive in which to unload my overloaded brain. As an educator, a full-time student, along with the very heartbreaking need to help aged and dying parents, I need to clear my mind in order to be productive. I chose to begin a degree program in the midst of everything else because I need to have assurance of employment, or at least have a better chance of it. The last few years have proven that during an economic downturn, and slow recovery, that college instructors like me are a dime a dozen, and the work can stop, dry up, and/or cease, over night. I am a person who enjoys college, its courses, and rewards, but have been unable to immerse myself in the enjoyment that should go along with learning something new, as it has in the past. I find myself having difficulty concentrating on my coursework which then leads to panic. I have to get this done, and there is only one way to accomplish it; just do it! Other advice that works here is that offered by Douglas Adams in the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", that features a book of the same title, and which offers readers the advice to "...DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.". Perhaps I should take that advice, and also the advice that I give others who are currently overwhelmed as I am, which is to "breathe deeply", and that chocolate can only help (in the Harry Potter books, chocolate is a restorative). I could also use the advice given somewhere in the Bible wherein a sage person comforts a reader with: "this too shall pass". While there is no stopping in sight, it may be time to come up for air, smell some roses. and endeavor to 'not panic'.