Grapefruit and Oranges
There has been a steady incline in this whole depression thing.
I have felt every. single. step. I have trudged through mud, slipped on gravel, and dug my heels into the sand. I have taken one step forward, only to fall five steps back... and down.
But still, it's an incline. And I'm climbing it.
For example: Today.
I woke up feeling tired, but hopeful that today would be productive. Decided to sleep for a bit once I got CJ on the bus, and sleep I did.
Woke up feeling less tired and less hopeful about today's productivity, but decided to power through anyways. I had a painting to finish for etsy, and I could at least get that done.
Enter M...
M was at her worst today. Too sick to have a play date, but well enough to hate being home. She was whiny, resistant, and taking advantage of every one of my weak moments. She wanted nothing to do with the food I put on her plate, yet she was always hungry. She begged for me to turn on a movie, only to watch three minutes of it before drawing pictures on the screen with her SNOT. She wanted play-doh, but only if she could throw it across the kitchen. She wanted the dog, but only if they could play ninja-assassin and helpless victim (can you guess which was which?).
Then CJ came home. She's running a small fever. Again. Poor thing.
Sensing her weakness, M pounced on her right out of the gate. CJ wailed as if her finger had been severed off. M laughed. They both went to time out - CJ for being over dramatic (it was just a plastic cookie, yo!), M for being...well... maniacal.
By this point, I had lost all hope of any productivity and simply awaited B's return. I called him at the gym and asked him if he could come home a little early so I could get my own turn relieving some stress. He said no, then changed his mind. Whatever.
When he got home, both girls were in timeout. Again. For something different. I don't remember what it was.
I left and went to the gym.
I pumped some iron (why do guys say that? it sounds so lame?) and probably did too much too soon. But it felt good to let out the aggression that had built up throughout the day. And I left feeling slightly more capable of handling the evening and bedtime routine.
I thought a lot about this past weekend. 6 months ago, three weeks into my internship, we had a weekend that required a few extra hours of work and a lot of flexibility. Halfway through that weekend, I sat in the living room with B and balled my eyes out. "This is not what I signed up for! You should do this by yourself, and I'll just take care of the girls! This is not good for them!"
The truth was that the girls were fine. I wasn't. I was being stretched. People were requiring things of me that I had never required of myself. And it was hard.
Fast forward to last weekend. The conference was twice as big. The hours were three times longer. On two of the four days, I was at the church for 12 hours and 15 hours respectively, on my feet, with people, moving chairs, doing construction, carrying heavy things, cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors, etc. etc. etc., without ever leaving the campus.
And at the end of the weekend, as I stood looking at the wet floor - the last area that needed to be mopped for the weekend - I realized: I could keep going. I had energy to spare. I had put in more time and energy and passion than ever before, and I was not completely spent.
And that thought, in that moment, empowered me. The next day I started jogging. I set a goal. A very minimum goal. When I felt like giving up short of that goal, I remembered the stretch. I remembered that, right now it's hard, but it won't always be hard. I'm in the stretch, and that's painful. But the thing about stretching something is that, eventually, it gets stretched out. The new depth and width becomes the norm.
So I pushed through. And I accomplished more than my initial goal.
Same thing today when I went to the gym. It was hard. People probably thought I was crazy for all the facial expressions I was using. But I was pushing, stretching. And I knew that, someday, forty pounds will feel easy. Someday, I will look back on today and think, that 40 pounds was a stretch, but now it's below the norm.
All that to say... on the way home from the gym, I felt determined. "It's going to be a good evening, dammit!"
I walked in the door to see B and the girls sitting on the couch, eating dinner, watching a movie.
I asked how things went. He said they had a good talk. He told them to say "I'm sorry" and they did.
Then he and I walked into the kitchen. We had about 7 minutes before he had to leave, in which time he managed to bring up the following:
1. The housework is falling behind.
2. Remember "P.E.P" It's something they tell the teachers to use in school with unruly students. P.E.P. stands for "proximity, eye contact, privacy." Apparently, I didn't do that when I was dealing with the girls earlier, you know, when he wasn't here.
Isn't it funny how one person's comments can just put a big ol' fat soggy wet blanket on any feelings of confidence one scrapes up for oneself? Yeah.
So I finished the movie with the girls. Gave them drugs. Sent them to bed. And texted B: the housework won't get done tonight.
Now I'm sulking. It's better than wallowing, but still probably not the healthiest response to all this.
Gah. A point! Make a point!
My point is that today, which was a pretty bad day, is not even on the same scale as a bad day from two months ago. It's like apples and oranges. Well, okay more like grapefruit and oranges. In the same family, but still not to be compared.
I'm going to watch a movie now.