The Blahs

Some days, everything just feels all wrong – doesn’t it? Nothing goes well. Nothing seems right. You wake up with an agonizing crick in your neck, and can’t turn your head to the left without howling. You schlep around in your slippers all heavy-like. And emptying the dishwasher, you break a glass (probably because you were moving all robotic-like, trying to keep your neck straight) – then you cut yourself cleaning it up. Minor cut, but still! After breakfast, you discover a zillion hole-punches in the carpet – infuriatingly tiny circles everywhere you look and you keep gathering them up and they just keep showing up – because they’re white and the carpet’s white, too.

On these days, folding laundry makes you weepy; but putting it away has you outright sobbing. And so does accidentally shrinking your nicest shirt – the kind of shirt you save for Bunco Night. And you can’t pack a lunch to save your life; it’s all muddy up there in your brain. And the new light in the bathroom makes you look all orange and blotchy, (just what you need on a morning like this) and like you have a bizarre skin disease – and well, you do: a totally uncalled for case of adult acne. How unfair is adult acne!? I mean, seriously?! Like acne didn’t torture us enough in our delicate teen years? Apparently, the initial attack in your youth wasn’t satisfying enough for the bloodthirsty hormones; no, they have to launch a surprise attack in your mid-thirties, when your hair is turning gray and wiry by the second, and you have those saggy, hot dog boobs (your reward for nursing three babies); and let’s not forget the stretch-marked, jelly tummy (your other reward). And…you seem to be growing a beard, to boot.

Then there’s the hair. Oh Good Lord! Can nobody look at my hair today? Please?! Not only does it seem to be falling out, (people are always picking it off of my sweaters and such) but I can’t style it to save my life. So this morning, I got out the orange sewing scissors and chopped away at it, in a pathetic attempt to make it look like the sassy J.Crew model in my catalog (you do impulsive stuff like this when you’ve been taken captive by hormones). And now it appears I’ve given myself feathers…you know, as in Charlie’s Angels? What really gets my goat is I tried so hard for feathered hair like this in the sixth grade and could never achieve it. And now, here it is, totally unsolicited! All I can say for that is: thank the kind Lord I was invited to a Disco party this weekend.

Have I mentioned the mood? Oh Sweet Mary, Mother of God – the mood! The mood is all blah blah blah, and poor-me-like. My friend, Beth, calls this condition “the blahs.” I definitely have the blahs. Really – you’d think there’s been a death or at least a robbery or a broken washing machine or something over here. Nope. Just a cruel mood launching a cockamamie campaign in my brain – against everything sane, stable and true – kind of like The Glenn Beck Program (sorry, Dad). And the wingnut little hormones driving the campaign like to whisper lies in my ear – lies like I have no friends; like I have been forgotten; and like my lunch-packing skills have permanently abandoned me – as have, apparently, my laundry skills. Lies like I make a terrible housekeeper (which is only a teensy bit true). When Chad hears me reciting the lies list, he likes to say: “Wait, you forgot: you’re a horrible mother and you have six chins.” (He knows the list all too well). “Thanks, Honey,” I say, and I sincerely mean it, because Chad’s witty act of finishing my list actually serves to expose the classic absurdity of the mood for what it is: nothing more than a one-sided, irrational rant, like a radio personality with insanely low accuracy ratings, trying to brainwash me, and recruit me to the crazy side. And Lord help me, but sometimes it works; sometimes the blahs win.

Don’t you hate it when you have a case of the blahs and someone you know, who’s all rainbows and sunshine and waterfalls, someone who seems to always have her ducks (and moods) in a row says stupid stuff like, “Aw, cheer up! Life is good,” or “It’s okay, it’s not so bad,” (to which I want to say, “Oh but it is…you see, my children have no lunch) or my least favorite, “Gotta look for that silver lining!” Please! These determined moods have no sliver lining! The blahs is not the time for carpe diem, my friends! (And if you read my last post, you know I really do believe in seizing the day…. just not this one). No, the blahs are the blahs….they’re like a big, loathsome, greedy, insatiable entity all of their own, say like – Java the Hut. When I get the blahs, I like to invite them in a bit, the way a yogi does with distracting thoughts during meditation. People who meditate (let’s just call them what they are – saints) say that when unwelcome thoughts interrupt their pursuit of mindfulness, that if they let the thought come, and acknowledge it, rather than fight of off, it will leave on its own. Coming at these moods like a Samurai warrior has never really served me, anyway. And swung at them I have – with the sword of self-determination. But it never works: I seem to get sliced into smaller bits of myself that I can’t piece back together again.

So…when the blahs come knocking, I let them in, because I know eventually they will pass on. I crack open the door and give them a head nod, as if to say, Go on, take a seat, I’ll get the music. I like to play them sappy, drippy, dark night of the soul kind of music – like Bruce Springsteen (Ghost of Tom Joad in particular) or Damien Rice or Dido. I like to drink extra tea and read T.S. Eliot. I like to light smelly candles and climb under woolly blankies. Or, if it’s a really bad case of the blahs, I like to up my carbon footprint by buckling up the baby and heading twelve minutes across town to the drive through Caffino, for a very special double Mocha, handed mercifully to me, directly through my car window. It’s a small miracle, really, that a woman (especially one with a monkey of a nineteen month old) can obtain a Mocha in this manner. Or, there’s my other favorite trick: stopping into Trader Joe’s for a Lumpy Bumpy bar. Wait: don’t tell me you haven’t heard about Lumpy Bumpies! Seriously? Well, just imagine a glorified Snickers bar, (only smaller, unfortunately) packed in its own pretty, bright orange box, sold for way too much money a pop. And take it from Ms. Blahs here, Lumpy Bumpies do satisfy.

Sometimes, though, in these moods, I go for the free antidotes: I slump down on the couch next to Chad and say, with as much gravity as I can muster, Poor, Poor Shanny, and I shake my head back and forth all slow and dramatic like. Chad laughs hysterically when I do this – and wraps me up in his arms, and calls me his Shanalope. He strokes my knee, and other things. I think this is my favorite of the antidotes – my sane, rational, amusing husband, who grounds me and soothes me like an NPR segment.

I will say it’s nice and cloudy today.* I like it when these kinds of days are overcast because, otherwise, the sun feels positively taunting and rude on a day like this; it feels like, “Ha, ha! The universe is bright and happy and you – what’s wrong with you – why you all pouty?” Okay, so I found a little silver lining. Big deal.

*For the record, I started this piece on Tuesday, which was perfectly overcast.