Same shit, different day.

I think a touch of depression is setting in. I have so much to get done. The weather is absolutely beautiful. The pool is open. School is almost over (a reason for celebration not sadness for this mom, I love having my girls home and our time to ourselves again.) I joined a gym and am doing a decent job of going regularly. Plus I have a fabulous group of new friends thanks to joining the theater company. Yet I still feel the inextricable pull of depression.

First sign for me is total inertia. Even though I have so much work to do yet all I can manage to do is fulfill my etsy orders and then sit here on the computer all day playing stupid games on Facebook. When my depression starts to take hold I get almost autistic-like with my game playing focus. When I was pregnant for Sarah I played solitaire compulsively (this was before I had a computer and I would shuffle the cards over, and over, and over again until I almost wore them out.) Sometimes other activities will take the place of game playing. Occasionally it has been knitting. I even went to knitting group last week and cast on for a new cardigan. Sometimes it has been reading either real books or online. When I first discover the world of blogs and had a brief stint of depression, I sat and read celebrity gossip blogs for hours. I'm guessing that a therapist would probably call this a form of OCD. Why can't I get OCD about cleaning my garage or weeding my flower beds? Oh wait, been there, done that.

I think one reason for this mini-depression (other than the obvious) is that from the end of March until last week I had a lot of things outside my control that I had to focus on. I had commitments and deadlines. I've been lucky with my depression that I've never been totally debilitated by it. I've never spent days or weeks in bed unable to meet my own and my family's basic needs. I've come close and many times really wanted to just go and hide but I've always managed to pull myself out long enough to make a good appearance. How I manage to do this is to go totally inert and when I'm alone and then pull it together when they get home at the end of the day. The weekend was especially difficult because I was never alone and the stress of putting on a good face was really difficult. I also tend to go into autopilot. I just go through the motions of my normal routine with no real emotion or energy. I'd find myself driving down the road and realize I had no idea where or why I was going somewhere, then I'd remember my errand or which kid I was picking up from what activity.

For today and tomorrow I'm just focusing on one thing at a time. I'm taking a combination day-to-day and hour-to-hour approach. Yesterday I made myself call and make an appointment for Heidi at the groomer. I've been putting that off for months and I couldn't ignore it any longer. Poor girl looked like a stray! Today I'm just making myself walk away from the computer every hour or so and just get one thing done. Unload the dishwasher, put in a load of laundry, take the Netflix to the mailbox, move a few boxes in the store room. Tomorrow I pay bills. I don't look beyond tomorrow because then I just get overwhelmed.

Yesterday I picked up Shadow's ashes from the vet's office. The finality of that hit me really hard. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with them. Keeping them on display on the mantel seems morbid and creepy. Burying them is too final for me right now. A friend told me that she had a necklace made with a vial to hold some ashes after her dog died, I'm considering this but again, kind of creepy. Right now all I'm managing to do with them is hold the can and cry. This week has been harder than last week for some reason. Again probably because all the energy I needed to get through it all finally drained away.

I have 20 minutes now to pull my shit together and go pick up the girls. Emma has a busy week with tech week for the school musical, she is on the prop and make up crew. Sarah and I are trying to make it to the gym every day we can to work toward our fitness goals this summer. I'm also sure they'd like to eat dinner at some point. Once that is all accomplished, I'm going to lose myself in the American Idol final performances and that new show Glee on Fox.