It’s amazing how easily our lives can go off track, how disruptive it can be when our routines are thrown off. We had a leak in the roof; the boot around the sewer stack over the bathroom was old and cracked, and water had gradually seeped through and started bubbling through the plaster in the bathroom walls. We had gotten the roof repaired a while ago and were just living with the damaged walls until this month, when we finally got a contractor in to repair the bathroom. While the construction was going on, we had to leave the house for most of the day to go somewhere with a working bathroom. The contractor was very neat and tidy, but still a major part of the house was torn apart and slowly put back together, and the ripples were felt throughout the house.
May was a long, trying months for other reasons as well. But it was compounded by the bathroom taking three times as long as originally projected. As he took the walls apart he found more damage than we had originally thought, and of course, that had to be repaired as well. The disruption to our routines caused our sleep cycles to get thrown off, and when you live with a toddler that has repercussions for everyone in the house.
So, it was with a lack of sleep and wide variety of other stressors that May decided to throw our way that I found myself at work the day after a funeral and I could just feel myself shutting down. Living with depression for so long, you get a feel for the physicality of it, the actual feeling of your brain slowing down, of your neurons starting to misfire as your thoughts darken and your emotions become shallower and shallower as you feel less and less.
The next morning was the first day that we had the house back after the contractor had left. And there was a lot to be done. We were behind on the laundry and the dishes. Cruft had crept in and piled up on the dining room table. The living room was a haphazard collection of toys and books strewn about. And looking around at the mess, all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch with the boy and watch pre-school programming on the television.
But I put on my pants and I got to work. I got the laundry going, got the dishes done. Got the table cleaned off, got the living room put away. Got the vacuum out and cleaned the dust off the carpet. The boy and I stripped the bed and changed the sheets. By nap time, the house was in good shape. And by nap time, I felt much better, mentally. I had cleared out some psychic blockages, getting things done that were piling up in my mind and adding to my anxiety and worry.
Now I’ve gotten the lawn mowed– we had become that house on the block. I think the neighbors had lapped me twice on mowing. I’m starting to get caught up on wide range of projects that had fallen by the wayside as our home and lives got disrupted. I’ve got some prospects on the horizon that I’m excited about. Things are looking up.
Except for the flood. But there’s not much you can do to stop the water from rising. You can move out of the way and sandbag, but really you have to wait for the water to rise and fall, and then clean up once it’s gone. And once it’s gone, you keep on going, just as you’ve always done.
