A Little Blue

I’ve been down lately. For no reason than just that sometimes, I feel down. I don’t know that you’d call it “Depression” with a big D, but more like a depression - little d. Like I feel somehow slightly pushed in. Like unbaked bread dough, or a thumbprint cookie. I’ve been a little squished.

I love my new job. I love our house in Walla Walla. I love all these new things happening around us. I guess part of me hoped the little d-depression was Moscow-specific, rather than me-specific. But I know, basically, where it comes from. Hormonal surges and pills that leave me feeling a little bit flat. A little squished. A little blue.

It’s ok, the blueness. I know that in a few days I’ll have the release of womanness and reopen a pill pack and move on, feeling basically “normal.” Holding on a little to the fear that the normal I feel is the thing that’s not real — that it’s really the light depression, the emotional pothole, that is my true self.

It’s a challenge that comes every few months, and I try to not lose myself in it. It’s hard to do much on these days. It’s easy to overeat, to binge. It’s easy to give in to my own fears — that I’ll never lose weight. That I’ll never be fit. That I won’t ever be able to turn around on my skates. That I’ll never be right and whole.

Tj was sick today, and it was nearly a relief to be able to miss derby practice and not face my own weakness and perceived failure. To not have to stand up on wheels and hear my inner critic chastise me, “You know If you’d workout on your off days you’d be doing better.” I know by Thursday’s practice the voice will be mostly gone — though perhaps not less true.

At 7 p.m. tonight, Clark hit an emotional iceberg that threatened to collapse our whole ship. He cried solid for a half hour — through a shower, through teeth brushing, through pajamas and down to bed. His tears were caused by my betrayal (I “ruined” his bead picture by not following his explicit instructions). The true cause, I suspect, is a stuck poop and a fear of constipation.

We sat on the toilet finally, and he sat and pushed while I balanced on the bathtub and read a story, appropriately, about evil toilets. The poop didn’t come, but the tears subsided and I reassured him that tomorrow we’d try again and that it’s ok.

I knew very much how he was feeling: A little stuck. A little hard. A little overwhelmed by the effort to keep pushing.

But I know that with some fluids and some time, he’ll be OK. And I will be, too.