Cheers

Will mushroom coffee fix everything?

I woke up feeling meh today. Just down, heavy, weighed down. Sad, maybe? Frustrated? Worried? I don’t know. I should probably check my feelings wheel. 

I don’t have a clear reason for feeling this way. Sure, there are a million reasons to feel down. Friends who are hurting, looming elections, climate change, my house is a mess. I don’t know how to distinguish between the grief of the earth being on fire with the annoyance that there is crap covering every surface of my home and no matter how hard I try, I’m doing the same damn chores every day to no real end. It kind of all feels the same. Bad. 

Part of my recent work in therapy has been to notice my discomfort. To sit in it and acknowledge it rather than push straight through it and try to solve it, process it, move right past it. When I notice the tightening in my shoulders, that closing up of my insides, my instructions are to stop and say, “this feels bad.” What? This feels bad? Duh. It feels bad. Somebody tell me how to fix it. 

It’s Saturday morning so I had the luxury/curse of staying in my bed longer today. I didn’t have to force myself up when it’s still dark outside and start the daily routines. But the slowness of it feels worse in some ways. I’ve always thought weekends were harder than weekdays. Downtime forces us back into ourselves in a way that is uncomfortable when we are used to numbing ourselves with busyness. 

I know where to start to help myself feel better. I will go through the motions of moving my body, drinking my water, eating a balance of food that is good for me and food that I enjoy eating (sometimes those overlap). I will limit the amount of news I take in because feeling this way is often a sign that I need to take a breather from The New York Times. I treat these things as though they were prescriptions from a doctor, rather than just good ideas. When you are feeling down and meh and over it, my advice is always to return to the hierarchy of needs.

We need sleep and food and water and rest in order to do any of the other things we really value. I believe this so much. 

And still I know there is no guarantee I will feel better. I might still feel like the slightest thing will tip me over the edge, like I’m irritated at the people around me just for existing. Like the meme says, I might be depressed or I might just need a nap. 

As noted, my kitchen island is covered with crap. I had to laugh at the still life of the orders that arrived with yesterday’s mail. A book called Life Worth Living and a box of coffee made out of mushrooms. Look at me out here still trying with all my damn might to get this whole life thing under control. As Amy Ray says on the live intro to Least Complicated (IYKYK), “you have to laugh at yourself because you’d cry your eyes out if you didn’t.” 

So today I am raising a cup of mushroom coffee to all of us who are waking up feeling like a person. And sometimes people feel bad. 

(I don’t like to be misunderstood and as I’m practicing vulnerability, I’m going to allow myself the disclaimer to say that when I post things like this, I am not issuing a cry for help. By the time I post something like this, I will probably be out of the funk that I am in when I am writing. I post things like this in hopes of connection, in hopes that someone will say that resonates with me, I feel like that sometimes too and reading this helps me feel less alone.)