Yesterday, it felt like spring here. Well, as much as it can feel like spring in January. In northern Illinois.
It wasn't sunny and warm. We didn't immediately put on shorts and run
outside. In fact, it was cloudy and gray and the lights were on in the
house most of the day just so we would avoid walking into furniture in
the dark. At noon.
But the temperature was well above freezing, and rain from the night
before had washed away most of the snow and left the air smelling
fresh. Emma and Fred went for a (still relatively bundled up) walk and
I opened up the windows and cleaned like I hadn't cleaned in months.
Scrubbing floors and vacuuming dark, dusty corners and polishing
furniture.
The last couple of weeks my mind has taken its cue from the weather.
Despite the fancy pill I pop every night (ostensibly prescribed to keep
my heart rate down but I think my doctor just told me that and instead
was thinking, "Please, just take this and shut UP about your anxiety
attacks), which for the past few months has helped keep the gloomies
away, they snuck back. And that made me sad. Which, already kind of
being sad, only made me sadder, and well, I think you see how this is
headed.
I wasn't quite sure how to handle it. I slept a lot. I read a lot. I
ate chocolate chips by the handful out of a giant bag from Costco. I
drank a fair amount of wine. I skipped all my exercise classes. And it
sucked.
And then yesterday, it went away. As I cleaned, I realized something
had changed because, hello, I do NOT clean when I'm depressed. After
cleaning I flopped on the couch and watched some football and had my
kid bring me food from her restaurant (she's a chef at Chili's, in case
you wondered). And I thought, good. Gone.
This morning the temperature has plummeted and it's snowing outside. Damn those gloomies and their insistence on coming back.
