The alarm went off at its usual time, 5:40 a.m., and I couldn’t get out of bed. I was physically capable. That wasn’t the problem. It was inside my head where the problem lay.
The weight of the previous days was like a crushing force holding me down. I couldn’t lift it myself. I didn’t want to get out of bed or go to work or do anything except curl up under the covers and sleep the day away. Maybe with a side of Netflix and chocolate. I knew that wouldn’t cure me, but I couldn’t make myself engage in life. Disengagement is my go-to coping mechanism when life is overwhelming and for whatever reason, that was the day that it all combined to overwhelm me.
But I made the first move toward overcoming these feelings: I told my husband how I was feeling. And he spoke words of life and love to me and helped me release the overwhelming emotions. Then I took a shower. It helped but it wasn’t the cure. I kept moving, going through the morning motions of eating breakfast, drinking coffee, getting dressed and making lunch. I drove to work listening to the one song that always fights the darkness inside of me. It is as much a prayer for me as a song, and it had been too long since I listened to it.
I was feeling better but not great when I arrived at work and my first duties of the day are usually in solitude, so I continued my attempts to shine light on the darkness.
//
This new medication I’m on, the one the nurse injected into my backside to help treat my endometriosis, I think it’s messing with my moods. I haven’t noticed any strong side effects–the occasional hot flash, a feeling of perpetual PMS–but this dark mood made me wonder if the medicine was to blame.
I hoped it was because the darkness scared me. I’m not prone to long bouts of depression. I have the occasional despairing moment but it hardly ever lasts longer than a day or two. A good night’s sleep. Some self-care practices. A run or walk outside. These are usually the things that get me through the dark moments. And the will to just keep going. It didn’t feel like me to not want to keep going.
For this reason, I’m grateful for my job. It forces me to keep going. I move from class to class every 43 minutes and no day is ever truly the same because the personalities I encounter are never the same, and I like it because it’s challenging. The previous two days had been some of the most challenging of my short educational career, and I didn’t know if I wanted to continue doing the work that I have found so much joy in.
When these days come, and they always hit at some point in the school year because education is a mentally exhausting profession, some positive thing happens to remind me that it’s worth it to keep going. I longed for such a sign on the day I wanted to give up.
And I got it. From the unlikeliest source.
I did nothing to deserve it, and I didn’t make it happen. It was a gift, plain and simple, and it got me through the day.
//
By the time my work day ended, I was feeling more like myself. And I took myself out for the afternoon to work on writing projects that just don’t get the attention they deserve. I spent almost three hours at Panera, writing and responding to messages and generally feeling like me again. I almost floated home, I was so full of light and goodness.
Not all was well when I got home. Nothing major just the usual frustrations that come from parenting after school and cooking dinner. My husband was in the midst of both of those tasks, and the darkness tried to creep back in, trying to convince me I’d been selfish to take all that time to myself. (The darkness is a liar. Don’t listen to it.)
We managed the evening routine without too much trouble.
//
The next morning I wanted to do something for my students who had earned a lunch party in our classroom. They’d begged for this specific kind of donuts, and I hadn’t signed up for anything to bring to the party. I left the house early for work, drove 15 minutes to the bakery and snuck a dozen of the famous-to-Lancaster-County long johns into the school. I didn’t want anyone to see me bringing them in. I wanted to surprise the kids.
When the teacher I work with saw the donut box not long after I’d arrived, she asked me about them. I told her I’d found them in the parking lot with a note attached instructing they be delivered to our room and it was my duty to comply.
The kids ate them up. Literally. I told them the donut fairy had delivered them but of course they knew better.
It was something I felt I had to do. The darkness inside of me had affected my relationships with my students earlier in the week. We are halfway through the year, and it is hard on all of us. Maybe they didn’t deserve the donuts, but I gave them to them anyway.
Grace is often like that, and I needed it as much as they did.
//
For now, the darkness is at bay. I wouldn’t say it has left completely, but getting out of bed isn’t a problem and getting on with the work in front of me isn’t a problem. I’m struggling with some health and body image feelings, but I need to keep reminding myself that the year is still young. It’s only been two-and-a-half months since my surgery, not even a month since I’ve been exercising regularly again. Last fall took a toll on my body, and it will take time to get back to where I was.
In the meantime, my clothes don’t fit right and my body doesn’t feel right, and my doctor and I are trying to find a way to keep me off my blood pressure medication, and I’m doubting the possibility because I have an anxious nature.
One day, I wanted to give up.
It was just one day.
The next day was better, and the one after that.
It won’t always happen like that. For some us, the days we want to give up outnumber the days we don’t.
Can you just hold on for one more day? (Yes, I have that Wilson Phillips song in my head now too.) And one more after that?
