(probably should've had a snack before writing this)
I feel like I've spent the last year and a half making lists of self-care activities, self-care and self-maintenance, whatever things I can do to try to help myself feel better. Vitaminsexercisemeditationmorningpagesgetsomesunshinetakeabath. When things are really dire, sleep under a weighted blanket. I finally realized that listing these out, I'm not going to come up with any new ideas. There is no secret hidden room in the apartment of my mind, full of quick fixes and cheap treats that will magically restore my constitution. Ok, lying on the acupressure mat helps. Acupressurematfoamrollertheragun, all the ways I can gently beat my body into a bit of laxness.
The past two weeks I've been wringing that litany for all it's worth. (For all its worth? Both work. Can you tell I just finished up a proofreading gig?) Miles has been fine for over a week now; last Friday we went to his GI appointment almost bashfully, loathe to let the hard-won timeslot go, but he was so clearly on the mend. But even though all this week, I've felt like I'm still recovering, from the stress, from the disruption, from what I could only describe as my nerves being shot. I felt anxious and agitated for no reason. I couldn't focus on work. I kept falling asleep on the couch at 8:30, which isn't really unusual to me—I especially love to doze to the sounds of the second half of a basketball game—but now I wasn't dozing, I was falling asleep hard, dragging myself upstairs when my husband went to bed, groggy and miserable.
But last night I just went to bed at 9 instead of dozing, which was a step. I wish there were more steps. I wish there were more things I could do, little things like taking vitamins, not the big things like "not be raising a toddler and writing a book in the midst of a pandemic," things like "be living your life in an entirely different time or place." The big things require time machines and precisely placed flaps of butterfly wings to retroactively bring about a new New Deal. Even socialized medicine wouldn't fix things, my friend in Scotland is faring no better. I googled "hygge" yesterday, so now I finally know how to pronounce it, but there are no solutions in candles and fuzzy blankets, it seems like hygge really is a peaceful state of mind, and if I had that I wouldn't be needing the candles to do such heavy lifting! Yes, I know hygge is so 2018.
I need to figure this out before the days get any shorter, the toddler illness sliding right into shorter days and the clock change—which I never minded before I had a kid, so enthusiastic for morning sunlight back then!—when suddenly the pick-up drive to daycare will be completed in full dark. I hated it all last winter. Will a fuzzy blanket or a SAD lamp fix that?
Are these piles of unsolveable problems or just the human condition? Did our grandparents even consider they could dread winter, or did they just mash their discontent down and sublimate it in gin drinks? What a privilege to lie on my couch with my computer in my lap, my child at school and well cared for, and to complain that I'm not in a better mood. But I still wish I felt better, both things are true.
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