Doldrums

This has been a weird week for me. I have been mostly intolerant of other people. For any of you who have been on the receiving end of this, forgive me, but I'm still feeling a little grouchy.
I wish I could say, "Well, it all started with..." But I'm not that self aware.
I can tell you that I first noticed it last Saturday. I'd get all antsy in the middle of a conversation and just want to be finished talking or listening or being with people. The possibility exists that it started before last Saturday, I just hadn't noticed.
I can also tell you the heighth, or depth, of my doldrums came on Wednesday. That's when a discussion with Tucker led to him leaving for school without kissing me goodbye. I put my hand out and grabbed his bicep. He jerked his arm away from me.
"Can I have a kiss?" I asked as he pulled away.
"No," he said moving toward the door.
"Just let him go," said my husband. And my anger, perhaps wrongfully, surged toward my husband instead of my teenage son.
I dragged myself to work and my students got some half-hearted teaching that day.
I took to the couch when I got home, hoping a nap would help. I considered skipping the back-to-school night. That's when the parents go through their kids' class schedules and get to meet all the teachers. The idea of trying to juggle both boys' schedules seemed too daunting. Why did I even care? They would probably do fine.
But, I got a text from an acquaintance about a college visit and she asked if I'd be at the school, so I went.
By the time I had finished, I actually felt better, a little more upbeat.
But today again, a day when I didn't have to teach, I dreaded going to lunch and a movie with an old friend. While we ate, I winced at her abruptness to the waiter. I felt like I was cataloging her faults. I would never want someone to feel that way about a visit with me.
Everyone fended for themselves for dinner. I offered halfheartedly to make some macaroni and cheese for Tucker. I would have loved to curl up on the couch again with some mindless TLC shows, but the first high school football game is tonight. Grace asked me to go.
We'll walk in together. She'll see some of her former classmates. Squeals of joy will ensue and I'll find some other acquaintance to sit with. That's fine. It makes me leave the house and gives me a chance to spy on the boys while they are in their high school environment.
I'm not sure where these doldrums came from, but I'm ready for them to move on.
Sorry if I haven't been there to distract you this week with my witty bon mots. Maybe things will improve next week.

Shoes and SAD

This week, I bought two new pairs of shoes. Now, that isn't like me. I am definitely not a clothes horse. My husband even pointed out recently that I am nothing like those women on House Hunters who complain about the size of the walk-in closet and say laughingly, "Well, I don't know where he'll put his clothes."
What spurred me to buy new shoes was my walk to the coffee shop with my computer. My winter boots are warm and furry, but they are not made for walking miles.
I don't want to wear hiking boots, which make me feel like a lumberjack, so I tromped off to Macys that day after I walked to the coffee shop. And, for you judgers, yes, that is the only day I have actually walked to the coffee shop -- so far.
However, I have exercised every day, except Wednesday, which is (coincidence or no?) the day that I fell into SAD.
Seasonal Affective Disorder hits people in the winter, however my SAD, Son Affective Disorder, can hit year round and usually does.
I realize that I'm a mother and mother's are supposed to give selflessly, never expecting anything in return, and most of the time I'm fine with that. Sometimes though, I snap.
The day began at 7 a.m. when I picked up bagels for the basketball team. Not my basketball team, mind you, but my son's basketball team. Then, because he couldn't get the ice off the inside of his windshield, at 7:15, I drove him and his friend to basketball with the bagels and the gallon of chocolate milk. At 7:45 I drove Tucker to school.
At 8:15 the swim coach called and I talked to her for half an hour (see the previous post). At 10:30 I took Tucker to the eye doctor and at 12 we drove through Subway to get him lunch before I returned him to school, only to pick him up again at 3.
"Mind if I run up to the grocery store to get sour cream?" I asked him. It was a rhetorical question. I was going to the store anyway.
"Only if you get me chocolate milk," he said. (What is it with teenage boys and chocolate milk?)
So we started driving and Tucker began the latest litany of the ways I have embarassed him and how I need to change. "At that other eye doctor, when you laughed, it was obvious you were mad," he said.
"Yeah, well, I was mad. I wasn't trying to hide it."
"Well, why do you laugh then? You always do that and it's so obvious."
I turned the car down a side street and took him home. How long are we expected to sit and list to our shortcomings?
"I'm not perfect and neither are you," I told him. "Some day..." well, you know how the rest of that sentence goes.
Home from the grocery, I prepared for the class I teach Wednesday night.

"Spencer," I called.
"What?" he reluctantly responded and came up the basement stairs.
I told him that his aunt and uncle would be at the basketball game that night since neither Earl nor I could be there.
"After you guys go in the locker room, go back out and talk to Uncle Jim and Aunt Vicky."
"What? Why? Why does this have to be such a big deal? Why can't I take a shower first?" said my ungrateful elder son who ended up getting a free meal when the aunt and uncle took him out to dinner.
They were doing us a favor. I hate it when my kids have sports events and no parents to watch them. Spencer, now 17, needs to show a little more gratitude.
So feeling like I'm raising selfish teenagers (which I am) I left for class. I stopped to get a mocha hoping it would dispel my SAD. Then I tried a Peppermint Pattie. Alas. The SAD remained.
This morning, as I slipped on my new shoes and left for work, I stopped at Starbucks for one more try to kick the SAD. The sun was shining; the thermometer hovered at 1 degree. Finally, the double shot of espresso mixed with white chocolate launched me out of SAD.
And the new shoes made me feel better too.
The black shoes are by Born. I love the way they look from this angle, which is the angle I see them at the most. At least twice before I travelled to France I bought Born shoes. They last forever and are great for walking, plus dressy enough to wear to work.
The other pair I bought are by Jambu. That's the same brand that I bought last spring before Earl and I visited Paris. Last spring though they were wedge sandals in patent leather. This year, obviously, slip-on, sporty shoes. They still have a bit of a heel and will be perfect the next time I walk to the coffee shop, which should be when the thermometer rises above 35.

Sad Grace

Tucker is in charge of the picture slide show for the high school swim team this year so we have over 600 photos of swim team members. This one kind of sums up how Grace felt after her disappointing swim at Districts.
As we were driving home from play practice at 9:30 last night, I broached the subject of skipping swim championships for the Y next week. She will have play performances Thursday, Friday, and twice Saturday. Then she'll have to get up at 6 on Sunday and drive two hours to swim. She is setting herself up for more disappointment.
"No, I can't skip. It's my last championships."
Then I pictured how the "last" anything is so sad for Grace and I imagined the tears I will have to deal with.
"Well, if you skip this year then last year was your last year so you won't have to be sad," I reasoned.
She didn't buy it.

Let Me Take You To - Funk Town

Things were sliding downhill this morning. Actually, it started last night. I'd have to say my overall mood was verklempt, to borrow a word from the Yiddish.
When the realization finally dawned on me that I was feeling sad, I tried to pin it down. I'm not that aware of how I'm feeling until I bite someone's head off, or, like last night, wander from the dishes in the sink to the laundry in the wash without accomplishing either. I just wanted someone else to come take care of it, and I knew my papers were waiting to be graded.
So, pop, came the realization that I was a little down. Then I needed to figure out why.
1.Today is the championship swim meet for the summer league and I work from 8 to 3. Oh, sure, I have some time while I sit in the classroom and the students are researching their essays, but I can't drive the 20 minutes to cheer on my kids and get back to collect papers.
2. Next week is the national swim meet that Grace will be swimming in. My husband will take her, Spencer and the French girl to Washington DC. I will stay home with Tucker. I will work all week and wish that I was there to watch her or to drive to the Jefferson Memorial at night and watch the lights reflect on the water.
3.Work, maybe overwork, is getting to me a little bit. I haven't read a book in weeks. I don't have time. Sometimes I'll sit down with papers to grade while my husband has the Tour de France on, but that's as close as I've been to leisure time lately. Unless my morning runs count as leisure time, but often they seem like work too.
4.Seeing Grace's itchiness, her need for alone time, while we have our house guest worries me about her ability to go away to college and live in such close proximity to other people. Why am I worrying about something so far in the future?

So this morning, I found someone to give them a ride to the swim meet. They had to be there at 7:40 and my class started at 8. A friend said she'd pick them up at 6:30. She likes to get there early. At 6:15, I roused them. They complained. I fixed bagels and cream cheese. I gathered folding chairs and blankets and a bag of food supplies. We waited until 7:05 when the ride finally showed up. Am I allowed to be pissed at someone who is doing me a favor?
I finished getting ready for work, rushed to campus so I could print off the essay assignment, and the computers had all been disconnected from the printer. I couldn't print the assignment which I was giving the students today.
Bummed. I pushed the button for the elevator to go down three floors. Dead silence from the elevator shafts. Both of them.
I finally open the door of my classroom, a few minutes late, feeling even more verklempt when there, on the table next to my desk is a Tim Horton's box. Chad, one of my students, brought me donuts!! Donuts? That's the nicest thing anyone has done for me, well, today anyway.
I sent them off to the library.
"You should have a starting pistol," one of the students said.
"When I bite into the donut, go," I said. I held up the donut with crystallized sugar on it. "And, go." I bit into the donut and my day took a turn.