This has been yet another emotionally exhausting day. It’s been an amazing run over the past few weeks. I’m not quite sure what all is fueling it all except perhaps just plain old physical exhaustion as well. Sometimes all the energy that goes into trying to maintain a positive attitude in the midst of a variety of challenges evaporates and everything sort of comes crashing down. What’s left when the dust settles is this quaking, shaking, bruised and tattered person who after coughing out the dust from the collapse realizes that in the midst of the wreckage around her she’s still alive and relatively unscathed. This morning I had a pretty classic meltdown. I had gotten into my car and was driving up the driveway from my condo headed toward the office where I am doing some short-term contract work. I hadn’t even gotten all the way up the driveway and out to the street, when while I was putting on my sunglasses the lens popped out. I completely lost it. I was so angry that I started screaming and swearing, throwing down my glasses case in disgust and trying to ram the lens back into the frame, cursing all the while.
Clearly my reaction was not about the lens falling out of the glasses–to say that my reaction was disproportionate to the precipitating event would be a gross understatement. No, it was about much more than the glasses. It was about the sense that on some days not even the smallest thing goes right; there is always something that can go wrong. And with all that felt wrong in my world this morning, all I needed was one thing to set me off and my sunglasses fit the bill. Even though I shockingly snapped it back into place after only two tries (it usually takes me much longer than that), I was filled with rage and pain. By this time I had pulled over to the curb and was railing, screaming at the top of my voice, and sobbing. It was not pretty. And the one theme I kept repeating throughout was this, “I’m so tired.” Even thinking about it now makes me feel tired. After howling and railing for about ten minutes, I pulled myself together and away from the curb and headed to work.
I am grateful for resilience, although it also makes me cranky when I think about how often I have to draw on it. I feel like I’ve bounced back so many times I must be made out of rubber. Remember those big punching bag toys called “weebles?” Their theme was “weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” You could punch and clobber that standing blow up toy, but it was weighted in such a way that it always popped right back up. I’ve kind of felt that way in recent months. Something or somethings came along and pounded me down, but I didn’t stay down for very long. I popped back up. This ability to bounce back from calamity and drama, while mostly a good thing (I mean, who wants to get stuck in some kind of depressed funk?) it’s also a bit of a nuisance. For me it takes a lot of energy to experience the initial trauma (pain number one) then expend all the emotional energy in response to what happened (exacerbation of pain number one by dwelling on it), then still more energy to try to bring myself into emotional equilibrium and equanimity, and more still to maintain it. Periodically that energy flags and one is left splashing around in emotional goo like I was this morning. “This too shall pass,” I told myself as I wept this morning, “It always does.” And, it did. By the time I got to work about 30 minutes later, I was over it and ready to get on with the day. And while the lingering aftereffects of the rocky start were still present, I was able to have a productive day. I felt good about that.
You know, from time to time I quote the title from the old song, “Mama Said There’ll Be Days Like This,” and while I don’t remember my own Mama explicitly warning me about days like this, I do know that I inherited from her and my father a pretty healthy dose of resilience, perseverance and that quality of “soldiering on” that has helped me weather some pretty stormy times in the past 15 months. I am grateful for these qualities and remain amazed and gratified that whenever I go to the well to draw on them, something always manages to be there. My son told me earlier this evening, “You know Mom, you don’t give yourself enough credit for the things you’re doing right. You can be pretty hard on yourself.” Hmmm. Maybe he’s right. Something else to work on! But not tonight. Tonight, I rest.
