Buttons and Switches

For the last 3 weeks or so I have been miserable. Everything has sucked and nothing could make me happy. My brain was in over-drive, narrating my every waking moment and continuing on long into the night when I should have been sleeping. The job stress has felt unmanageable, to the point where all I want to do is quit and start replying to any and every craigslist help wanted ad in an effort to just do something else. And then we went away for 4 days on what should have been our vacation. 

Instead of down time, we had nursing home visits with Uncle T and more impending grief in the form of The Other L’s breast cancer diagnosis. We had button-pushing, issue stoking, and emotional-pot stirring. All the big stuff like Uncle T’s downhill slide and The Other L’s scan results coupled with little things like how The Mr.’s cousin M reminds me so much of an ex that it brings back memories better left forgotten, and the fact that the family calls The Mr. by his middle name as he was always known growing up. When I met him, he had started going by his first name, and the first time I heard him called the other name was when I met his ex-wife. Now every time I hear that name, I see her face and all the alimony he’s paying. I spent 4 days deliberately not calling my husband by any name at all.

Something flipped for me while shopping for jeans in Boston. My favorite pair finally wore through in the thighs so I needed a new summer pair. After multiple failures with denim I grabbed a dress and decided to try it on. I walked out with 2 summer dresses and a long skirt. For the first time in 3 weeks I felt happy and relaxed. It wasn’t anything major, but the small victory just unhinged something and I was able to turn down the noise in my head for the first time in weeks. My change in mood was perfectly timed, because shortly after my positive shift, The Mr. got hit with it all. He’s lost his appetite and just can’t seem to feel okay. We went to the movies yesterday and by the time we got home he had taken a Happy Camper and one of my Xanax and couldn’t finish his dinner.  This is where he and I are alike in a bad way- neither of us cope with stress in a healthy manner. 

We are in too deep with each other to help, and we still haven’t really found our people. The Mad Scientist has been the only genuine, established friend we’ve found here, but life is happening and I find myself thinking of him in the past tense more and more.

Today I’m coping by getting my fat ass out of the bed and stuffing it into my swim suit. The scales made me cry, despite not noticing any changes in my clothes, so I’m going to spray on the sunscreen, wet and braid my hair and go to the pool. This weekend we are going to check out a local roller skating rink that has an Artistic Skating Club I’m geeking out about. Next weekend the teenager leaves for two weeks in Texas. I’m clinging to the hope that the job stress will be more manageable while updating my resume in anticipation that it won’t. Uncle T had a little bit of a fund for the kids, so The Mr. was handed an envelope on our last day in Boston with double what we’ll need to get my car worked on. That’s been the number one ‘grown up reason’ to suck it up a little longer. It has to get better, because I said so, DAMMIT!