Therapy

A therapist told a friend a few years back that it was necessary to allow yourself some time to be in a depressed state {sad, gloomy, glum, melancholy}, to let the emotions have their time and be felt, but not let it rule your life.  He gave her "permission" to give herself time each day to be sad and cry and wallow in her miseries, but once the timer was up (using an actual timer), get on with her life.  I have not felt like I was repressing any of my feelings, but I have definitely cried more the last few days than Thanksgiving and Christmas day combined, leading me to wonder and second-guess the last few months.  But then I realize that this negates all of the good days, so I am just going to take it a day at a time, allowing myself to cry when I need, and work and play and laugh when I don't.  So that is what I did yesterday when I woke with a black hole vortex sucking me in.  I went to "see" Caden.

I cried myself out, not caring that I was "loud" (it was refreshing not to muffle my cries in a blanket so that little ones don't hear all of the emotion in another room), giving myself permission to cry as long as I needed.  I talked and verbally said how it felt, how much I missed and love him, and just laid there as long as I needed.  It wasn't the cold seeping through my massive blanket and thermals that prompted me to leave-- I truly was done crying.  It was time to move on with my day.

I came home to play games with the family.  We played a few rounds of Bang!: The Dice Game (our current family favorite), and then pulled out Mexican Train Dominoes.  I think playing games as a family is a bit like going to church with children between 12 months to 5 years old.  It's not as easy as you'd like sometimes, you wonder why you even bother because of the frustrated emotions it ignites, but it is good to take the time to instill the habits while they're young and just continue for years to come, so you soldier on.  Once we were thoroughly annoyed with each other, I got to work cleaning up Christmas and completing Randy's Christmas present: cleaning the garage.

 Every item in the garage was touched, moved- if needed- for better organization, put back in their "home" and cleaned to perfection.  Randy and I don't do gifts for each other on Christmas day-- It is our way to justify buying large items when we want it through the year.  2014 it was a kitchen remodel, 2016 it was a powder room remodel, 2017 it was family-room couches in October.  But... I do like to give the gift of my time.  I have done coupon books for massages for a few years.  This year it was three hours in one day cleaning the garage.

Like most things when it comes to me, a small project turns into much more.  Clean up Christmas became: garage that day (I had planned to do it when the kids went back to school), sanitize the entire house, three loads of laundry, and rearrange the front room.  If we would have had paint, it would have probably included painting those hideous walls!  Our painter was supposed to come today to match paint and schedule our Free job (we recommend him to everyone!), but he's sick.

2018 Resolution: Get rid of hideous wall color!

What started as a difficult day ended as a feel-good, productive day sprinkled with family fun.  It feels so good to have things so open, clean, and organized in every space of our home.  Today doesn't feel so heavy and gut-wrenching emotional.  I am not so naive to think that I won't struggle because of one therapeutic day, please, but I do plan to give myself conscious permission to cry myself out when needed-- and then get back to the life I choose to make.