Surly Thursday: Not Crazy, Just a Little Unwell

I still don't feel like writing. But I told myself I have to write a blog post or exercise, and I REALLY don't feel like exercising, so here we are.

I become more and more aware of my mood cycles as I age. In April my friend was here and I said I felt like she was mad at me or hiding something, and when she looked shocked I said "but I'll believe you if you say I'm wrong, because I remember the same thing happening last year before your birthday. I think this is the time of year when you get distant and I get paranoid."

I had a brief burst of wit and energy in May - decluttered a bunch of areas in the house, framed and hung up a bunch of pictures that had been lying around for years - and then June hit me like a hammer. And I realized that I invariably feel completely etiolated in June, even though I'm happy that the school year is ending and the structure of our days will change and the weather is better. Way to make NO FUCKING SENSE, mood cycle.

Photo credit Scott Hart

 I roused myself to hitherto unseen heights of house-cleaning the week before my birthday party - you can actually see WALL between pieces of furniture in the living room and dining room now, instead of stacked-up kindergarten art (yeah, my kids are practically adults now, piss off) and paintings that my husband likes but I don't (trees and rocks, they're great, maybe better outside than in) and rolls of wrapping paper and gift bags (it would be a TRAGEDY if we had to go all the way downstairs for one of those). And it was quite satisfying. Then we had the party, which was fabulous.

Then..... *that sound of something falling before it explodes, but no explosion, because an explosion would take energy*.

I'm working on my penultimate course for my diploma. I miss my placement. I loved my placement. I should have done that placement last, because any other placement will invariably suck by comparison. I just want that job, now, with, like, actual pay. I am finding it hard to give any kind of fuck percentage about this course, even though it's on children's programming which I'm theoretically interested in.

I find myself nursing resentments over throw-away comments my friends made months ago, or bracing myself for my mother to make comments about my hair or my weight or my driving before I see her, or dreaming of fighting with my sister over things we would never fight about. And then I realize that there's one common denominator here, and it's not all the OTHER horrible people in the world. Uh-oh.

I need new orthotics really badly - every time I walk anywhere I hobble around with a burning lower back and twisted-up feet for days after. So am I hastening with great alacrity to order those orthotics?

Photo credit Troy Tolley

Not so much.

I read another book today that wasn't really worth the two hours I spent reading it. I keep saying I'm going to stop doing that, and then I don't. My taste for writing has matured, but my juvenile sense of curiosity invariably sucks me in to any book that has a mystery that I can't immediately figure out. Then even when it all becomes predictable and the dialogue is clunky and I know I should go read something substantive instead, I just don't.

It's okay. It will pass. Probably. Eve got out of grade seven with good marks despite, not because of, most of her teachers, and I'm proud of the resilience she's developed throughout a pretty challenging year (more on that in the next post). Angus is baseballing all over southern Ontario and the states right now and having a blast. I will force myself to work on my course, and walk, and order new orthotics, and blog. Because it makes everything better, or at least helps me keep a handle on everything getting worse.

If anyone needs me, I'll be over here in the red tent.