Blue Monday. And Tuesday. And all the other days.

So last week was tough. I was recovering from my second mysterious barfing plague in two weeks, my husband was in France, and Tuesday evening it started raining and didn't stop until Friday afternoon. It wasn't that there was so much to do - there were two baseball games and a school barbecue to deal with, but none of them actually ended up happening, because of illness (Angus's) or weather. It wasn't that I fed the kids leftover macaroni and bacon on Monday and ordered pizza on Tuesday and then made chicken souvlaki on Wednesday and made them eat it for the rest of the week.

Photo credit John Beales

It was that I was doing everything while dragging these shackles around. You know, the depression shackles, the ones that clank around behind you and make every step a huge effort, while hollering lie after lie. You're ugly. You're useless. Nobody loves you. Your kids wish they had a better mother. They also whisper a few things that are probably true. You will never be totally free of this.

Sometimes there's no way out but through, right? Even though I tried to open the curtains in my room and pulled the whole curtain rod down. Even though I spilled every container of juice I reached for.  By Friday I felt like I couldn't move. I had a long-overdue haircut booked for 12:30. I took the kids to school and took a shower and sat in a chair to read but I could hardly turn the pages. I fell asleep reading. Later I fell asleep under the hair dryer. But hair has to be cut, kids have to be fed, husbands eventually return from France, and I only have one book club end-of-year dinner a year (it's a hence-the-name thing).

I forced myself out of the house. I kept fake smiling until my smile felt less fake. One of my book club friends said, at one point, "she's strange. She works hard during the week, but then on Saturday she'll just sit in a chair and read all day and not interact with anyone!" I said "yeah, what a freak." and everyone laughed, and it was okay because suddenly I was basically okay with my book-freakiness again.

Just so this post isn't all about my pain, here is our book club list for the forthcoming year:

Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy

All the President's Men and/or Crazy Town

How Should a Person Be, Sheila Heti

Crow Lake, Mary Lawson

The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier

The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

The Beautiful Mystery, Louise Penny

And now I can see that last week was tough, because I'm in a different week. And today I had to water the flowers because it hasn't rained for a couple of days. And I feel a little lighter. And it's okay, because if I was totally free of those periodic shackles, my life would probably be way too easy.