I started decorating right after Thanksgiving with a song in my heart because we would have the newlyweds at our house for a whole week and the 2 other brothers with us for most of that time. Whiskey Jim and I purchased a tree from the tree lot instead of sawing off a pine bush from our slope and throwing some little lights on it like last year. Last year people kept feeling bad for us because they thought our tree kept falling over. It was just a thermometer of how this mom was feeling about the impending holiday. Just in case you haven’t had the experience yet, it’s really hard the first time when one of your kids isn’t home for a major holiday. There’s a tremor in the force and everything is a little bit off. It’s part of the natural change families go through, but still……..
Anyway, we had a great time together this Christmas. Whiskey Jim and I would go to bed at the end of a busy day and hear the laughter of our children downstairs. I think we held hands and fell asleep one night because we were so happy. One evening we played a card game and laughed until we cried. It was just wonderful.
As with everything, we all had to go back to our regular lives. On Saturday, the oldest son was the first to go back home. I was fine. The other kids were here and we still had plans.
Sunday morning was when I had the sensation that the floor was beginning to tilt. I was laying in bed trying to figure out why I should leave my warm nest when I noticed it. It wasn’t really happening, but I had the feeling that I was sliding down, down, down this tilting floor to one side of the room; into the sad, anxious side of me. I could picture myself grabbing for the planks on the floor of my bedroom and trying to pull myself up to escape the darkness down at the bottom. This happens sometimes and I have some strategies to deal with it so I ran through them. The first one is usually “stop doing whatever you’re doing right this instant”, so I got out of bed and got coffee from downstairs. There were people in the kitchen who love me and make me want to be a better person, so that worked. Then I got in the shower and decided to go to church. It helps when I keep a schedule, especially when I want to isolate myself, so I go out to see that the world is still spinning and people are carrying on with their lives. By the time I was ready to leave, the rest of the family decided to go. (It was a bonus because I didn’t expect them to. Whiskey Jim reminds me that “expectations are just premeditated disappointments” – I agree mostly.) My church is like performance art that is based an ongoing story in which we’re all characters interacting in this weekly drama that features all sorts of unique individuals. We have all kinds of people there. It’s really wonderful. It’s that story that keeps me there. If you’d like to meet me there, I will save you a seat right next to me. However, sitting by me is a crap shoot, according to my husband, because I goof around a lot and I get irritated at people who talk during the music. He gives me “the look” when I cross the line of too much silliness and/or crankiness. What’s wrong with spicing up a 300 year old church hymn by singing it in opera style? And some of the songs do sound like drinking songs, so why not sway back and forth with an invisible slugger of invisible beer? The positive side of this silly/crabby thing is that I’m learning through the love of our God of Second Chances that I get a new chance every day to be a better person. Going to church turned my day around that day and I returned from the dark side, living another day to use my power for good and not evil.
Some other things I do when I feel myself getting melancholy is make sure I get enough sleep, but not too much - I’m a sleep-escaper. I get some exercise and don’t drink too much coffee or alcohol. I make sure I don’t skip the medicine I take. I also do a lot of self-talking about being patient with myself and remembering that this too shall pass. It’s easy to think I won’t feel better soon. That’s the lie that anxiety tells me. It whispers in my ear that I should go into survival mode and protect myself - that I’m not ever going to be ok. I know better now and ignore it.
Today is the second day of 2015. Mother Nature has shown us who is boss this week and snowed all over us with abandon. It’s taken me a couple of days to calm down and I’m feeling better. I have a 50/50 chance of saying something cheerful now. We went to a party with a lot of new people and I had fun talking to people I had never met before. I didn’t mention Hospice or being alone in a world full of pain even once. That’s progress, right?
Life is a series of contrasts:
day/night hot/cold in/out up/down straight/curly
We can’t control it. Let’s just agree to do what we can and sit next to each other, learning everything we can about this life and the people we come across. And for all our sakes, let’s prove to each other how Brave and how Kind we can be in this world.