Wednesday, February 19, 2014

A Down Day

It hits out of nowhere.

Well, not really nowhere because I have PTSD and am fighting an infection which makes me tired and am facing the difficult truth that I a) did NOT develop a new fistula (which means THREE repairs have now failed) and b) I must now make a choice between a really hard surgery and a really, really hard surgery in order to move on with some semblance of life. All around me hard things are happening; deaths, illness, struggles. I feel powerless to help myself, let alone "be there" for anyone else.

So, okay, there's background.

But mostly I think I do a pretty good job of dealing with it. After the initial post-surgery fugue and the inevitable crash when the bad news is first delivered, that is. (Those are really bad days, just ask Jasper.)

After the initial shock, however, after the crying fits and the exhaustion and the utter weariness, there comes a kind of -- well, not acceptance, but sort of an even period of coping. Of just moving on. Realizing that it is what it is and nothing I can do will change it so I might as well get on with things. There comes a sort of equilibrium.

"I'm on the hunt for who I've not yet become,
but I'd settle for a little equilibrium."
-Sara Bareilles, "Hercules"

It's fragile, though, this equilibrium.

Sometimes I know what sets it off. More bad news from the doctor, a horrible news story, that feeling that no matter how hard I try I will never be the mother I want to be. (That last feeling may or may not have been set off today by one of my offspring managing to slip out of the house without brushing her teeth. Again.) Sometimes nothing really sets it off, I just wake up with a weight holding me down, an utter feeling of exhaustion, and the knowledge that today is going to be a Down Day.

In the former circumstance I can more or less deal with it, with help. I can cry and express frustration and talk with people about why I'm upset. In the second, however, I never really know what to say. How do you explain what it's like when everything just feels heavy? When you are so damn tired that even the thought of a shower exhausts you?

These are the days when, if I do make it into the shower, I stand there and cry. For no reason. For every reason. Because-- 

Just because. Because even the shower drains me, and I don't know why.

I hate it; I hate these Down Days. They suck everything into an abyss and I. Just. Can't.

Jasper and I were speaking with a friend once, in the midst of several Down Days, when the bad news just kept coming, when even those we thought understood made it clear they had no clue. We were describing what was happening all around us and to us and in us and I was frantic to be understood, practically frenetic with my need to be understood. And this friend, with infinite love and understanding, looked me straight in the eye and said, "That is really shitty. It is just completely shit."

And I thought, "Yes. Yes, it is." And I began to feel better. Because sometimes, sometimes, everyone just needs someone to acknowledge the poop.

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