As a young girl growing up, I loved watching my mother iron clothing in the living room.

From a five-year-old’s four-foot perspective, there was something ethereal about how that oddly-shaped piece of metal travelled with the movement of her hands.

It seemed even more magical when the steam feature was on. I’d imagine that dozens of Tinker Bells were hiding inside the iron sprinkling pixie dust to magically transform Daddy’s crinkled, blue office shirt into a neatly pressed uniform ready for a hard day’s work.

The Heat Of Adolescence

To me, my adolescence was without argument the most challenging and stressful developmental stage to date.

The 15-year-old me wasn’t prepared to cope with the sudden biological and socioemotional changes in my coming of age.

No one told me that I had an identity to find and make mine, or that there was a quest for academic excellence every Singaporean student had to plough through.

No one told me I wasn’t ready for a relationship at 15, or that I wasn’t mature enough to deal with the emotional stress that came with a breakup.

Well, Mum did on a couple of occasions.

But she never said I wouldn’t listen to her anyway, binge after the end of my romance and gain weight. Lots of it.

So while other hormonally-charged children my age picked up their PlayStation Portables and took out their frustrations on virtual zombies, I began to find solace in picking up the iron and pressing out the crinkles in freshly-washed clothes.

Fortunately for me, lest for the few times I got lost in my own thoughts, hardly anything was burnt in the process.

Smoothening Out Rough Patches

Before I knew it, ironing had become a form of therapy for me. Nothing annoyed me more than a creased shirt, and nothing appeased me more than to press out those crinkles.

Metaphorically speaking, I could feel myself ironing out the stressors in my life.

As a Psychology student looking to be a practitioner in the near future, it would be interesting to test out this very personal idea of stress therapy.

I haven’t been able to come up with a decent catchphrase to promote such a therapy though. I’m still stuck with the very cheesy “Can’t get rid of the kinks in your life? But your iron can!“.

Nonetheless, even if my dreams of being esteemed among the likes of Freud for my contributions to the field of Psychology with my Ironing Therapy are never realised, at least this seemingly mundane chore works wonders for me.

After a term of hard work in school, a quiet day dedicated to straightening out crumpled linen on my trusty ironing board has always helped me sleep better at night.

Ironically (no pun intended), the shirts I loved ironing the most aren’t mine, but those of my late father.

I guess they just brought back memories of my childhood adventures with Tinker Bell and her magical pixie dust.

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