Pushed

I’ve come full-circle today. I woke up in a very different mindset and mood than I’m in now. I was moving in a fog. I was not myself. This week and its events all combined to make me feel a bit emotionally dead. Sounds terrible, but I think I was getting there. I have had trouble getting anywhere on time, trouble making decisions, trouble seeing the forest for the trees. I was a lesser version of myself, one that had been pushed, pushed, pushed. More than anything, I was on autopilot.

After I got Lil to the bus stop, readied the boys, cleaned a bit and and took off, late, to my OB check-up, I was told at the receptionist’s window that the OB was stuck in surgery and I could either wait a long time or reschedule. I should have had some kind of reaction to this. But I remember thinking, matter-of-factly “Oh, of course, he’s stuck in surgery. Of course, he can’t see me.” And I did have a fleeting thought of well wishes for the woman/women he was operating on, that all would be okay, that all had gone well. But, by and large, I didn’t feel anything. I rescheduled, bundled the boys back up, ran a couple errands and headed home.

Oh, I also stopped at Tim Horton’s for the second day in a row for a medium cafe mocha and Timbits. (Thank you, Tim. Sometimes, you are my only friend.)

I got home, gathered some packages, hit the Web for a quick break. And the boys played. They played so well together. The sun started to shine, and something let go of its hold on me. I felt the heaviness of the morning fading. I put on my shoes, picked up clutter throughout the house and proceeded to vacuum the hell out of it.

And cleaning is the right thing to do to bring me out of a funk, or lack of a funk, or whatever that ambivalence I felt can be called. I thought it and then posted it as my Facebook status: “When the going get tough, the tough get cleaning. (I am Erin, daughter of Deborah, daughter of Joanne.)”

I think it’s just in my blood. It’s what “my people” do. We feel the weight of the world, realize we can’t change it all and then focus on shining up our corner of it as best we can. I may not be able to solve the world’s problems, but I can solve my own. Or at least fight the paralysis they can bring.

So I shined up the place, ate a late lunch with the boys, caught a short nap and carried on. I hosted my mom, my sis and my sis’ kids for dinner and then joined the “deer camp women” and children at a good friend’s house to relax. It took a couple games of Catchphrase, some yummy snacks and three wine glasses full of cranberry ginger ale. Hours of self-reflection. By being gentle with myself and allowing time for the cloud to pass, I’m sitting here in a much different place.

I’m fine. This deer camp will go down in the record books, the girls and I will come up with an epic “dear” camp of our own. Moods will come and go. Packages will be lost and found. The world will go on, and so will I.

I’m happy to be back in the land of the living, to feel my blessings and to yearn, in earnest, for my warm bed. I’m thankful for my challenges, my ups and downs, my wisdom in being able to help myself to stay grounded but to not go under.

The mind is a powerful thing. And, thank goodness, so is a Kenmore sweeper…