By: Graeme Seabrook.
It is 8:25 in the morning and I already know it’s going to be a bad day. It was a bad afternoon yesterday, which led to a bad night and we rolled straight into a bad day today.
Not enough rest.
No patience.
The house is disgusting.
Nothing is working right.
The toddler is in a crappy mood.
I have no energy and am at that stage of pregnancy where everything either hurts or is uncomfortable.
Add a history of Postpartum Depression and Anxiety, a borderline OCD personality and the hormonal fluctuations of late pregnancy and you have a recipe for a disaster of a day.
All the moms at drop off this morning were smiling. The women who take care of my son during the day greeted our identical frowns with beaming smiles. I gave him a kiss and told him that I love him and said goodbye. He gave me a look that perfectly reflected what I was really thinking, “I don’t want to do today”.
Can we all just be honest for a second? Sometimes I just don’t want to do today, whatever today is. Some days just suck. I don’t want to go run it out, or make a gratitude journal. I don’t want to breathe through it in a yoga class or to pray it away. I don’t want read something funny or to cheer myself up. I want to go to bed and hide from this day. I want to say a big, loud NO to this day and make it all stop.
Of course I can’t. There are three hours until I pick my son up and I have about five hours of work to do in them. While he naps, if he naps, I’ll clean so that the house doesn’t bother me quite so much. At some point I’ll also get to the grocery store, make dinner and finish a project that is going terribly, but which must get done.
I won’t be smiling today. I won’t be making funny small talk with the parents at pick up or the clerk at the grocery store. I’m not going to use what little energy I have faking it.
Today is a bad day. I’ve made the (possibly radical?) decision to just let it be a bad day. I’ll cry when I need to and yell into my trusty pillow when I get overwhelmed. I’ll eat the ice cream and I’ll fold clothes a tad too aggressively. I won’t feel guilty about not being happy today. I’m going to move through this bad day and let it move through me. And tomorrow? Well, who knows what tomorrow could bring.