solo mama entendre

Life is not that hard. My life, by comparison to several million people, is not that hard. I still feel like I’m under a giant crushing rock lately. I’m the blob from the depression commercial. I think it might have been the Zoloft advertisement years ago. The bubble blob that drifted through life with the serious and concerned sounding male voiceover:

“Is it hard to get out of bed in the morning?”

“Have you lost interest in the things you used to enjoy?”

“Do you cry more often?”

Do you find every single thing you encounter irritating? Do you find yourself crying when you forget your kids’ breakfast bars on the kitchen counter in the morning? Does everything, including washing two cups sitting in the sink after breakfast, feel like the most monumental of tasks?

How many days of exercise per week will it take before endorphins flood my body and make me laugh like a maniac?

Is it weird that in conversations with friends or my children or my boss, I make up the answers I want to hear from them in my head? That I’ve created an imaginary significant other with whom I chat in my head (obviously I make up his responses too, he’s perfect). That I miss belly dancing not just for the exercise and companionship but I also loved making vibrator jokes when my instructor talked about how great belly dancing is for sex?

How long does a funk last? I attended my kids’ sock hop the other night and I found myself clinging to the wall of the gym, not unlike my own middle- and high school days. I made conversation with a tall, lanky man wearing glasses who was standing beside me. I guessed he might have spent some time on the wall in those days as well. He talked to me about his divorce. Not unlike a conversation I may have had with someone else on the wall in school, minus the legalities of marriage. A friend checked in with me the next day. She thought I had looked sad. I didn’t realize I was wearing sadness. She said, “It’s understandable. You have a lot on your plate.”

So does everybody. Especially my mom and dad, when they come to visit and they are helping me catch up on 30 loads of laundry and fixing ceiling fans that have been broken for a year. I continue to need a mom and dad to take care of me. For the love of God, I’m 46 years old. I think. I can’t remember. I keep thinking I’m 45 but that may have been one or two birthdays ago.

Is this the post holiday blues? Only to last until the holiday season starts again in July? Is it pre-Valentines blues? Lord, I hate that day. I heard an idea on the radio to give people who might be suffering from a breakup or a death or just might be single and not loving it, a thoughtful gift. I’m totally going to do that.

Just writing this has brightened me up a little. It is a skill to make yourself smile, even when others watching you type away on your phone think you are a lunatic.

In just 12 hours, it will be Monday morning, the start of another work week. Thank goodness I like what I do for a living. That’s a plus. I’m going to work on gratitude this week. That’s supposed to help. ♥️