Yesterday everything dropped, starting with the temperature. After a truly gorgeous November weekend where we ate outside for lunch, it’s a little hard to shift gears to forty degrees colder and ice on the windshield. This past weekend was a little bit of everything we needed – a good balance of home and away, quiet time alone and quiet time with friends, good weather and nice scenery. Sunday was hard, as we returned back to church. I’m not sure I was ready to sit still in a room full of people and cry again. We couldn’t sing, and we left needing to take a big deep breath, so M suggested we drive across the river and along it – up to the confluence and beyond. Maybe we could even call it research, since E was working on a watershed model at home. Maybe we could call it avoidance, or therapy, or a little of both. Regardless, it worked for a bit, and the drive was lovely.
And then Monday returned, with work that requires twice the effort to concentrate on, leaving me completely drained by the end of the day. There was (an already scheduled) meeting at lunch to discuss our personal finances – one of those check in appointments on our retirement savings and college planning and life insurance needs. The lunch was good, the company was good, but the planning feels hollow and removed. I’m not in the frame of mind to think about college and long term retirement plans. I’d just like someone to reach for my hand across the table and tell me everything is going to be okay – my children will be just fine and we’ll just move forward in this life until the day we need all of these stored riches. There are the holidays to discuss, but my heart’s not really in it yet. Travel plans to be made, or not made, and projects to start and complete. The next two months stretch in front of me like long weeks to get through. I’m out of vacation time, and so the weeks seem longer without the possibility of a break. There are things on the news too difficult to imagine, so I tune out my head and my heart and try to go to sleep.
There are things to share that are sweet and funny and amazing and right now I can absorb them – take them in – but that’s as far as I get. Writing about them and sharing them is too much, although I’ll try tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow will be a little brighter than today.
Saw your comment on Brooke’s blog about crying at your desk yesterday. Just wanted to come by to say I hope today’s looking better for you (as I just finished crying at my desk wishing it was 3 instead of 9).