SOMETIMES, WE STRUGGLE!
I lost my coffee in my house this morning. It’s not a house, actually. It’s a very small apartment. I walked around the rooms of mess, my kitchen with the dishwasher waiting to be unpacked, and dishes piling up in the sink, and a bucket of crap I had to put away but didn’t have the energy to consider, pinching my 10mg Lexapro pill between forefinger and thumb as I went to find my coffee. I’d only had a couple of sips. I took the Lexapro dry.
Sometimes you can use cognitive behavioural therapy to help overcome a generalised anxiety disorder that absolutely smashes you with every psychosomatic symptom available, and sometimes the only way forward is a little bit of medicinal help to quieten an overexcited Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis. I tried to go au natural for four years, and you wouldn’t have known it looking at me, but I could barely function. Life is as much a rollercoaster as that sentence is a cliché. (And seriously, finding a psychologist who can help you navigate your way through any kind of mental health challenge, is priceless. Shout out to Dr Elizabeth, absolute superstar, lifesaver).
Anyway, my coffee is going cold somewhere, and there aren’t that many places it could be since we only have four rooms. Just now, the dog, our magical, perfect rescue-chihuahua; perfect except for her sometime disobedient bladder, did a wee on my daughter’s new pink fluffy rug, and then she (the dog) went out of that room to throw up some grass on her other rug. I quickly whisked her outside, but she was already done. Why endure the indignity of concrete when plush carpet is on offer? I completely understand!
Every room is a mess. I can’t stop thinking about where my coffee could be. I went to find my phone to soothe myself with some scrolling of the world horrors that have decided to be my algorithm, but I couldn’t find that either. Is this what being 45 and probably perimenopausal is? Feeling paralysed by life? Being unable to find anything: caffeinated beverages, technology, words? Giving the appearance of being on top of everything in every other aspect, but in the confines of your home being completely incapable of getting on top of anything? Least of all, the mess in every room at once? Just shuffling little piles from bed to chair to kitchen table, so at least one room gets to have its moment to shine?
I feel like a little domestic hamster on a wheel sometimes. Keep going! You might get to the end of the wheel! (You won’t!) Or sometimes it’s like you’re wading through concrete and every so often a giant ball comes rolling from behind (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-style) and flattens you. But you have to get up again and keep wading! There are dinners to be made and bills to pay, school lunches to pack and things to put away! Cupboards to tidy and dishwashers to empty and an endless cycle of washing and drying!
Of course it’s more than that. Life is beautiful, even if it feels hard. I have a messy, tiny flat but we have a flat to make mess in! Mess means we have things! I have a job that I worked hard to get and that is fun and rewarding. I have wonderful people in my life who nourish my heart and soul. I have the capacity to acknowledge my feelings and put them into perspective and shake it off. I look for the beauty and magic in every day. Even flowers can grow through a crack in the pavement! I saw a tiny little green caterpillar inching along a leaf and thought: even she is probably worrying about how she’s going to pay the bills, feed the kids and avoid getting eaten by a magpie before dinnertime. It’s all relative.
I remind myself of the impermanence of things and I know that everything will feel brighter and better another day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the chihuahua is sitting in the courtyard, chewing on a piece of dried fish skin. How wonderful! Though not so good for the fish. Anyway, when I finally stopped looking, I found my coffee, and my phone. Of course I did! They were next to each other on the coffee table.
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