Sunday, December 27, 2009

The down side of a swell

I like equilibrium. I like slow and steady. I like the same pace. All of which is why I don't "do well" at this time of year: too many God-damn swells. I feel like I'm on small boat in the north Atlantic.
Last weekend our family was traveling to and from Pittsburgh for the Packers/Steelers game on Sunday, the 20th. We left on Saturday, the last flight heading east to fly out of O'Hare. We got to the hotel late on Saturday.
Then the game time was changed to 4:15pm EST so we had a nice leisurely tailgate party sponsored by our tour group at a local brew-pub. It was a long game and we took the ferry across the river (don't ask me which one, but it was one of three {if you're familiar with the lay-out of Pittsburgh you'll find that hilarious, trust me.}) The Cleveland Show was on the TVs on the ferry so it was after that when we got back to the hotel. We did a little shopping on Monday morning, then started the trek back west from Pittsburgh, to O'Hare (where we spent a 4 hour lay-over {yes, it would've been faster to DRIVE from Chicago back to Appleton than stay at the airport, we realize that}) then we had to caravan back to Appleton from Green Bay once the plane landed. I don't fly well, so I was comatose for most of our time in the air both ways, but it all seemed like a very long trip. We were in bed by roughly 11:30pm Monday night. That was December 21st. That was a long 3 day swell.
Four days later it was Christmas. Four short days. That's not a lot of recovery time for me, especially when there were still a few Christmas gifts left to purchase.
Did I mention the ice storm on Wednesday the 23rd? As you know I'm currently unemployed so I was waiting for that weeks unemployment check in order to buy those last minute gifts. Usually my check comes on Wednesday, but not this week. This week it came on Thursday, Christmas Eve. So my husband and I sat in the house stressing about the ice that was layering the 14" of snow still on the ground from a couple of weeks ago and those God-damn Christmas presents. That's holiday spirit, isn't it? How did we get related to so many people? When did our Christmas budget get so out of control? When did we decide to go on vacation the last shopping weekend before the holiday? At the time it all sounded like a good idea.
So Christmas came just the same, which was good and wonderful and bright and all of those Christmas-carol adjectives it should be.
But now it's over. It's the down side of a 4 foot swell and I'm losing my footing just the same. Just for kicks I put on Mannheim Steamroller's Silent Night from their first Christmas CD and plugged in the digital picture frame just to see exactly how low I could make myself feel. I stopped after 5 photos or so because I realized I was just being stupid. Why fight the good 300mg of Effexor is trying to do on a daily basis? Oh what I wouldn't give for a little hypo-mania right about now. I've never experienced it, but I've heard good things about it. I get the crushing depression anyway, so you'd think I could get a little pay off for having to plow through that, but no. It's either even-Steven or skidding downhill for this chick; no upsie-daisies allowed. God-damn it.
This week is not going to be easy. It's going to be long and lonely and, quite frankly, sad. This time next week we'll likely be taking down the tree and packing away all of the indoor decorations to spend another moldy year in the basement. Then what happens? Maybe the boat evens out, the waters calm, and I feel just a little bit more like myself again.
Enjoy.

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