Finding Purpose

Today is one of those days.  Last night I went to bed vowing to wake up today feeling better, having more energy, zipping off to my 10am yoga class which I haven't been to in over a month.  But I woke up with my typical headache and backache, shuffled around the kitchen making coffee and J's breakfast, and slumped down at the table to read all the horrible shit in the newspaper.  Including the article about the police officer and father of four, gunned down by a drunk psycho yesterday just blocks away from J's office.  The day before at the intersection J drives through twice every day, that last turn at the corner of the street to his parking lot, a young woman was killed when another person slammed into her car- that person was speeding away in a stolen vehicle.  This world of ours.

I had a nice respite yesterday and I ended my day in a better mood.  It was in the 70's, I was able to open the windows and get fresh air and hear the birds.  I went to town in the afternoon for quick errands- dropping off a few Etsy sales at the post office, putting money in the bank (always a good thing), and perusing the aisles at the thrift store after I donated a big bag of clothes and shoes.  Sunny.  Good music on the radio.  I even came home and had a very productive evening, putting together several dozen necklaces for my booth, which is still technically a dream at this point.

This morning it's still warm out but pouring rain, the gray heavy stuff that puddles on the sidewalk and creates small lakes in the yard.  The temp will drop to 40 by lunchtime, and will be in the 20's tonight. Did I want to go to yoga that badly?  Nah.  I talked myself out of it before I even finished my first cup of coffee. Like it was an outdoor class, instead of in a clean cozy studio with warm cork floors.  Then as the minutes ticked by, I got angry at myself for not going, because it's the one thing that helps with the miserable body aches.  So I still continue to feel like crap, physically, which always leads to the mental side of it.  Getting in my head.  My body aches, and it won't be long before my brain does too.

That's my M.O.  Say I'm going to do something, promise myself I will do it, talk myself out of it with a lame excuse, then get righteously pissed off at myself for not doing it.  Over and over, every day.

At breakfast I crumbled a bit.  I try my best to never start J's day off with my whining, so I usually keep my stuff to myself.  We read the paper, talk about local news, talk about what he has coming up at work that day, talk about what we want to do this weekend.  But this morning I just grabbed my head wildly.  I said to him, I just need to shake this off!  He said, the blues?  (That's our genteel code word for my depression.)  It wasn't that, and I couldn't put it into words for a moment.  Then I said, I just need to FOCUS.  On something, anything.  His first answer was, of course, focus on my health but that's always his go-to topic for me.  Eat better.  Take my vitamins.  Exercise.  All are things I have a tendency to forget to do, or make really awful excuses as to why I didn't "have time" to do them.  But then I realized he is right.  There really are days when I am so beleaguered with what's inside of me, I do forget the simple tasks of taking pills.

I have too many of those days where, at 8am I open the dishwasher to unload the clean dishes from overnight.  At 3pm I walk back through the kitchen and the door is still open but only half the dishes were put away.  Does everyone have days like this?  Or is this my own personal brand of foolishness?  Am I really that lazy, or does my mind just simply drift off in the middle of such an uncomplicated undertaking?  What can I do to change this behavior?  I have to know.  Maybe it's the same phenomenon that took me from being that efficient 5am 5-minute shower person, to a midday 40-minute hot bath soaker.

I've written about it before, but when I worked I could multitask and complete major projects like nobody else- I even had 5 statues sitting on my desk for all the awards I'd won for my diligent work ethic.  I was single-minded, unstoppable, reliable.  Now that I'm at home, that has fallen apart.  It's like that fierce, smart, motivated part of my brain got left behind at the office.  Even though I have clearly defined goals for myself, I'm not working towards any of them at any steady pace.  Time slips through my fingers so easily now, hour by hour, and that's part of why I feel so useless.  What did I accomplish today?  Did I do anything worth mentioning? Why do I think I have to complete something monumental every day?  I'm alone at home, what exactly is there here that is so earth-shattering?  Hell, I can't even get the cats to stop peeing in the corner of our bedroom.

It's not enough to keep the kitchen and bathrooms clean.  It's not enough to pack my husband's lunch every morning.  It's not enough to take the recycling on Mondays, put out the garbage on Thursdays, do the dry cleaning on Fridays. It's not enough to pick up and drop off and clip coupons.  It's not enough to be a housewife anymore.  It's enough for J, he is pleased with those domestic changes in me.  And I'm not saying I want to jump out there into the working world again. Why can't I run a business from here?  Why can't I start a project here- and finish it?  Why can't I be useful again?  Why can't I ever do more than just talk about it!  I just want to find "that woman" I used to be, and put her to good use keeping up my new life at home.  I try to remind myself that as far as J and I are concerned, I am "retired".  Why do I think I have to do anything!

I've given serious thought to hiring a life coach, but that seems so Hollyweird for a plain and simple stay-at-home-person going through normal midlife pangs.  I don't need to save the world.  Just myself.

MISS GEE