Asleep at the Wheel

It is funny how even in a temperate state like Texas you can find yourself suffering from winter blahs.  I am not complaining about our winter one bit and I salute those of you in the still-frozen great white north.  However, winter is winter and there is a hunkering down mentality no matter where you are.  You drive to work as the sun is barely coming up and you come home as it is sneaking off again.  You are cold, you are damp, you feel your age in your bones.  You are tired of wearing sweaters and tired of the laundry accumulated by wearing layers.  You drink so much coffee you are afraid you are getting sick of coffee and so you switch to tea and find that too much coffee is always better than tea.  You can't eat sad salads at lunch because cold weather means warm food.  Warm, stick-to-your-ribs and add-to-your-thighs kind of meals: carby, cheesy bowls of steaming happiness.

There is just an ennui that comes from trudging through the days and nights of winter.  It sneaks up on you and takes you quickly.  One day you are saying how nice it is to wear your warmest sweater and the next day you are slogging through rain puddles and cursing the sky.  There is just a trudging along to winter, an enduring, a soldier on and if you are not careful, it takes over all aspects of your life.  The job you love becomes just a job.  You treat your husband like a roommate and your children like accessories to your life.  You are not depressed, you just exist, because depression takes effort and you are very busy just trudging on.  Soon you settle into a fugue that covers you up like a scratchy blanket and don't even realize it.

I think that I have been shuffling along like this for the past few weeks and I didn't even notice.  I trudged and got things done, but my heart wasn't in it.  When the boy told me he didn't have spelling words, I chose to believe him -  for three weeks straight.  My librarian went to some education conferences and came back all jacked up on education and I chose to find her excitement exhausting rather than inspiring.  Yuck, right?  

However, winter eventually ends and the winter blahs end too; your outer bitter shell melting with the snow or fading away with the increase in sun.  For me it came with noticing the trees are blooming. Spring in Texas is gorgeous and the show is just about to start.  Winter might be desolate and summer kind of brown, but spring is a visual masterpiece.  That made me happy.  Then I noticed that we have bluebonnets growing in our backyard.  Maybe I will take a picture of my kids in the bluebonnets for the first time.  Ha, no I won't.   However, it is nice that once you notice one thing, you notice another thing and soon the little good things break down your blahs and you are you again.  You laugh with your kids until your stomach hurts, you smile at your husband like you really see him and you stop just going through the motions of your life.  I hate when I realize I have been doing that; I feel like I am cheating myself out of life and those alongside me as well.  

I took the kids to the driving range for something to do the other day and while I know that the other ten people there were irritated by their squabbling, I was thinking how nice it was to listen to them argue outdoors for a change.  When SG kept missing the ball she was trying to kill in a baseball/hockey swing attack, instead of being irritated she wouldn't listen to me, I just turned around.  When I did, I noticed the most beautiful tree.

pretend it is right side up, technical difficulties

My focus that day was on appreciating what was around me whereas a week ago, my focus may have been too beaten down by what was around me to have even see that tree.   

I guess beating the winter blahs comes down to where you concentrate your efforts.  Find your catalyst and keep the momentum going.  Mine came from this silly little tree, but it has made me shake off the blah and realize that just trudging through life is not living, it is just trudging. We are on Spring Break this week and while we might not be doing anything other than doctor and dentist appointments, I am grateful for the time with my kids and grateful for the time off and I am concentrating all my efforts on that.  Which is timely because that bill at the orthodontist today would have crushed me a week ago.  Instead, I focused on SG's happy face when he explained what she would have to go through and what it would look like at the end, and that happy face was all that mattered.