Light Box

You know things have maybe taken a bit of a wrong turn when just ordering your light therapy box makes you excited.  And when you pay for next day shipping.  Yes, I caved and bought myself some artificial sunshine.  Yeah, yeah, I know it’s the end of February, and I’m sure that gorgeous days are just around the corner but just in case they’re not…hello, 10,000 lux!  As I said before, every year I google these things, and every year I’ve been too cheap to buy one, plus I’ve had all kinds of other reasons as to why I might feel, oh, just a tad bit lethargic.  Two years ago I told myself that really the issue was a lack of exercise, last year it was pregnancy.  This year, though, no excuses—I’m exercising more than ever before, I’m definitely not pregnant (I hope!), family life is beautiful and full of blessings, and work is…well, it’s work, but I certainly can’t complain more than usual.  So why do I still feel like I’m slogging through a foot of cement just to get through a day?  I’ll tell you why—it’s dark!  It’s dark when I drive in and gray when I drive home, and in between those drives, there are no windows in my clinic (it’s like Vegas but without the flashing lights and the pumped in oxygen.)  Bleh.  Anyway, I am not complaining, I’m really  not, I’m just fessing up to a little seasonal affective disorder and taking care of business.   I can honestly say I am super pumped to have my light.  Aiden and I sat in front of it this morning while he was nursing (I sure hope these lights don’t cause baby mania or anything!), and I felt a little hopeful.  Besides, all the reviews say the light makes you smarter, skinnier, richer, and better-looking.  I mean, who could pass that up?  So here’s to taking the bull by the horns and to sunnier skies, both real and artificial.  Cheers!

Purification

Adulthood inevitably leads to foulness.  Ok, maybe not for everyone, but in my case I offer the following evidence:  Most mornings I get up early, get showered and dressed, and cook breakfast for my husband and myself.  Good start so far, I know, but just wait.  As we sit together, eating breakfast on our bed (which in and of itself is pretty lazy and gross, but hey, the TV is in there and we just MUST catch up on our morning news, ok?), my lovely husband, almost without fail, will push out either one or a series of loud farts.  Just for the record, I would never do such a thing.  Just ask anyone.  Even more egregious, the other morning we had a rare opportunity just to lie there in the rare quiet silence before the boys wake up.   We were snuggled up and talking, very beautiful and still, when I feel his abdominal muscles flex, followed by a loud butt salutation to the morning.  Um, gross!  Of course, these events are chased by profuse apologies, but they continue to happen so I think he’s just ok with it.  Furthermore, I mean, I must be ok with it given I’ve subsequently had another baby with this gas making machine, right?  Where did the days go when we would have DIED if the other one even KNEW about our bodily functions, huh?  To offer more evidence of our spiraling toward further disgustingness, I caught a poo coming out of my nearly three-year-old son’s rear end yesterday.  I caught it with my bare hands (quick side admission:  as I’m writing this I first wrote “I caught it with my bear hands.”  Hmmm.  Interesting visual image but stupid mistake nonetheless.  I think the internets is making me dumb.  Anyway.)  Did I leap up in revulsion and protest, rush to the bathroom, get rid of the darn thing, and wash my hands about three thousand times?  No.  Not quite.  No.  I sat there, laughing hysterically, WHILE MY HUSBAND TOOK A PICTURE to document the whole thing.  Totally foul!  I did wash my hands a few good times and had a serious talk with Jack about how it would really be preferable, by me at least, if he could poo in the potty rather than my hands, but I still find my lack of disgust at the whole event kind of shocking.  Just to reassure you, if someone poo’ed on me in another setting, I’m pretty sure I would be horrified.  Pretty sure.  Goodness, I hope I would be horrified.  Anyway, all I’m saying here is I think as I’ve gone along, gotten married, become a parent, my grody threshold has gone way up.  I can’t say if this is good or bad, it just is.  Still, there must be something non-intuitive going on here, something inherently good in all this revolting behavior, because I can’t stop smiling as a write this.  I think God knew I needed to have little boys, and he blessed me three times over.  I get to laugh, every day, about farts and boogers and wieners—oh my.  As my friend joked, it really IS a glamorous life we’ve chosen.  The reality is, we are all animals with pretty disgusting bodily functions that can only be hidden for so long.  You can shower it, shave it, spray it down with perfume or cologne, but the dirty truth is, we are all just walking, talking shit machines.  I’m just blessed that I have three boys who will put up with mine (don’t worry—I’ve crossed over into figurative territory here.  I’m not pooping on anyone these days, just in case you wondered—ha!)  So here’s to family, in all of it’s glorious mess.  May we all know the love that accepts us completely—good, bad, and grubby.  Cheers!

Hibernation

I haven’t been to the bar in weeks, months even.  I know, right—slacker!  I mean here I made this public proclamation about going to the bar every week and having a beer with friends, and here I sit a totally beer-less backslider.  No beers, no friends.  Sounds pathetic, no?  So what happened?  Where did all that “sticking with a discipline” motivation go?  I could offer up a lot of excuses, but frankly it just hasn’t worked out.  Some of it is the cold, the dark, the gray Ohio weather.  I’ve been here three winters, and around this time every year I google light therapy for seasonal affective disorder.  I crave carbs like none other.  My motivation is transferred towards the acquisition of donuts and a warm place in my bed-ha!  In all seriousness, during these dark days the last thing I need is another sedative.  On the flip side, I probably do need the socialization, though I find myself seeking more and more solitude.  My friends from medical school called this “hermit mode” which is probably a pretty apt description, although I assure you I am not sporting crazy long fingernails, going days without showering, or peeing in bottles a la Howard Hughes or anything.   I am a little ambivalent toward my tendency to retreat.  I do enjoy the simple peacefulness of being alone with a book after the boys have gone to bed.  I do feel so much satisfaction and recharge in going out for a ten mile run with nothing but the music in my headphones keeping me company.  In fact, these times feel all the more precious now given my work—talking and listening and interacting with thirty or more people in a day can be exhausting.  A lunch break alone feels like a deep inhale, exhale.  So I am alone, but I do not feel lonely…most of the time.  The downside to seeking solitude is that on occasion I do feel lonely or bored or have the craziest cabin fever and wish I could fly off to warmer climes.  At these times I try to remember that while February may feel like the longest month of the year, the truth is exactly the opposite.  The days are getting longer, the temperatures warmer, and under all that snow melting, imagine this, the grass is actually green.  I bet my bulbs will be coming up in another month.  Maybe then with a little more vitamin D in my system I’ll be ready to belly up to the bar again.  We’ll see, but for now I’m mostly content to spend my time with my boys, with Jim, and with myself, be it on the road, on a treadmill, or nose buried in a book.  Here’s to all my fellow hermits, wherever you are hiding, may you find peace in your solitude and no loneliness in your aloneness.