When skies are grey

Some days are just bad – terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. Maybe you wake up on the wrong side of the bed after three hours of sleep and stepping out of it is your first mistake. Your to-do list scrolls like Santa’s and the breather from one task to the next only fuels your anxiety, heating you like a teapot ready to scream. Or when the skeletons in your closet dare you to throw all your dirty laundry onto the front lawn like a true Hollywood story. Sometimes the matter is out of your control, like when the invite finally arrives for your ten year high school reunion and you realize it falls on the same day as your best friend’s wedding. Coincidence, or shit for luck?

I love that opening scene from Office Space when the main character is stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on his way to work and no matter what lane he pulls into the others move faster. Sometimes you just can’t catch a break.

It was one of those days .. Thankfully, I diagnosed the symptoms early (a post-partum skill) and wrote out a prescription:
1. Avoid too much eye contact with your sad reflection.
2. Take those tired eyes and curl up under a down comforter.
3. Drink a fish bowl of wine.
4. Watch children’s movies you rented “for your (infant) daughter”, because everyone knows those always promise happy endings.
5. Remember, everyday can’t be the worst day.

Truth is part of the secret to happiness is enduring the ugliness and heartache and finding natural beauty in a messy life and sometimes tattered spirit. That’s what makes cloud nine feel so high.

Babies manage to make those days more difficult and more manageable all at the same time. It's a force that drives you to keep on keeping on and reminds you that there is more to life then selfish souls and grey days. It’s as if she knows. Like when she stores her farts or fussiness for those pivotal sun-setting seconds. Her timing is impeccable. I'm feeling like a puddle of crud so little lion puts on a show debuting a new trick. Suddenly the world could spiral out of orbit for all I care because she and this moment are all that matter. And amidst a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I find my happy place.

 

 

 

.. this went on for nearly an hour ..