Linking up with my people at Five Minute Friday today.
The theme?
There are days when I get up, I get dressed, I swig some coffee, and I sashay on out to the world and say,
“World, greetings and salutations! I just had some coffee and my kids are dressed with 75% of their clothes facing the right way, and I’m PUMPED. Let’s DO this!”
Today friends, is not that day.
Today was a wake up, stare up at the ceiling, wish for more sleep, more coffee, more time when my brain didn’t seem to hurt so bad, kind of day.
I was not ready to face it, the day, or anything else for that matter.
I just wanted to pull my covers up over my head and hope for sleep and chocolate and perhaps a Corgi puppy. A puppy would help.
That would get all messy, though. And you know the puppy would also eat the chocolate which is bad and there would be stains on the bed and UGH WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SO HARD EVEN PUPPIES.
And that’s when I start in on the whole exhausting mental checklist of Doom:
- It’s sunny, but I’m still sad.
- My children are healthy. Yep, still sad.
- Chocolate is in the house somewhere. SAD. SAD. SAD.
- We are fed, watered, have a roof… and still there is this horrible dreadful SADNESS. GO AWAY.
I have no reason for this sadness. And I really hate that. I want it to go away. I want to fight it. But the more I do, the more I get stuck in the sadness. Do you remember that verse in the bible about temptation? It says not to engage. Don’t make eye contact. Just RUN DA HECK AWAY? Well, that’s what I need to do, I think.
But I’m too tired to run.
I hate this sadness SO much that I have a tendency to hunker down and listen to a sour, angry voice inside my head that I like to call my “Inner Asshole” (sounds so inappropriate and kind of gross, but really? It’s just who he is). And he says things like:
“You’ll always feel this way. This day is gonna suck so hard it will just be impossible to even MOVE and your kids will hate you and everything is awful and why even try. Nothing matters except that you know that you are a failure for feeling things so hard that they make you immobile, so for the love of Pete, MAKE SURE YOU DON’T MOVE THEN. It’s super important when feeling immobile to KEEP ON BEING THAT WAY.”
But this morning, I did this:
“Hey, Inner Asshole, shut it. (Again, kinda gross.) I gotta go teach a bunch of college kids how to write good.”
And I got up, got dressed, even brushed and flossed (win for me AND the college kids) and got to work.
I didn’t want to.
I really just wanted to stay home.
I kinda hate parenthetical citations, really.
But sometimes? The routine is all we have. And we get up, and floss, mutter the serenity prayer six times, and talk about parenthetical citations, and we hold onto all that stuff as a tiny, bobbing life preserver.
Not a big pink floatie in the shape of a flamingo, folks. Just a tiny, yellow, beat-up life preserver. That’s it. That’s all you get.
The sharks are still out there, but by goodness, I am going to float the heck out of that preserver and paddle on.
NOT TODAY, SHARK.
NOT TODAY.
Dana Bowman 
Momsie – IA (acronym for Inner Asshole [really does sound gross] needs to sashay awayy. 😂 when you say “salutations” do you think of charlotte’s web?
When you said serenity prayer, I thought of this: https://skitguys.com/videos/item/the-serenity-prayer 😂 they help the sadness go away, to far far away land.
Reading this reminded me of ME back in 2005. But back then I was a homeschool mom, and I didn’t get up off the couch. I didn’t let routine carry me. And it was horrible for a long time. Praise God He got me through it by means of friends, professional help, and most of all His Word. Funny how I didn’t think of it myself, but a friend told me to read the Psalms. David experienced depression, and he wrote about it in the Psalms. When he got down, he looked up to God. So through the help of friends I established a new routine of reading the psalms, and that got me through my sad days. Still does. 🙂
I’ve called him worse than that. Your post made me chuckle. Sadness, no stranger to it. Have you had your thyroid checked? I know I know I can’t stand it when people do that to me but seriously, when my thyroid is out of whack? I get this feeling of hopelessness. Could it be? xo
Love this!
And dogs always help. I have 20 (we run a sanctuary). When dawn lightens they sky, they want OUT, and they want breakfast. Staying in bed is not an option.
But since I am in the process of dying from pancreatic cancer (and another type besides) that’s OK. They keep me going, and keep me ‘needed’.
I live to serve and I continue living BECAUSE I serve.
I have a Suki. He’s a Corgi. Ask Marjie, he’s awesome, and you can borrow him anytime! 😉