October Blues

I wrote the post below pack in October while I was in the middle of a very stressful few weeks in my life and I never got around to posting it. There’s nothing profound below but I felt it was important to share in case anyone else is in the middle of spiraling as well, over what feels like nothing. At this point its now mid-December and I am doing well now. The chaos doesn’t last forever.

19 months. That’s how many months into the pandemic it took me to finally have my mental breakdown. Being home 100% of the time I can handle. The world being what we considered “normal” I could handle. This weird in-between space that we’re all pretending is a good compromise is what’s been kicking my ass.

This October has been one of the hardest months to get through in my entire life and I can’t really pinpoint it to one specific reason. There are several small things that have occurred that have certainly culminated in me not feeling great but I’m not sure why all of it has been bringing me down so hard.

I got my period this month. I’m on a seasonal birth control pill so my period only happens every three months. I genuinely don’t think I could do it every month. I don’t remember how I ever managed it in the past. My period wasn’t heavy and my cramps weren’t bad and the headache I always get wasn’t horrible. But, for some reason this go around I was wildly emotional. I cried typing emails, cutting up squash, conditioning my hair in the shower…I was not myself.

Early in the month Fran managed to hide under our bed one night. We usually close her out of the room at night because she likes to stand on top of my torso in the middle of the night and meow at me until I wake up to scratch her. She never wakes up Austin, only me. So, in true Fran fashion she was meowing in my face at 4 in the morning. That one night of poor sleep rolled into several nights of poor sleep.

So, menstrual and sleepless is how I started out October. On October 8th we saw Thrice and Touché Amoré in concert downtown. I’m not super familiar with their music but Touché Amoré was pretty good. Then Thrice came one and they were just awful, so so boring. I saw them years ago and they were amazing from what I remember before passing out (oops, damn you Warped Tour dehydration). It’s been over a year and a half since most people have even been to a show and they came out touring with none of their bangers on the set list. Honestly, it was annoying that we spent money on tickets for a wack show, but the worst part was my period cramps (even thought they weren’t horrible) chose that evening to settle in.

The next night, Saturday, we went to see New Found Glory and Less than Jake. That show, thankfully, was amazing. And the day after that we had to meet up with my family at the pumpkin patch (which is where this lovely picture was taken by my SIL). So we had a crazy busy weekend and were super tired. On top of all of our outings, we needed to remove everything from 3 closets and tear out the thin metal closet organization pieces that weekend because Closet America was coming first thing Monday morning to build out our new closets. And (aren’t you tired of me starting sentences with “and”) we had to clean the house because Austin’s mom and grandma were coming to stay with us Tuesday.

I know to a degree this is a stress tornado of my own creation because that weekend was way over-scheduled, but regardless of how it all came to be I was tired and stressed.

Well Sunday comes around and we’re heading home after a successful trip to pumpkin patch when we get the call that Austin’s mom and grandma are coming to our house immediately. There was some kinda of blow out fight while they were at Austin’s brother’s house, which I won’t get into since its not my story and its been resolved at this point anyway, so they were hightailing it to our place. The house had crap everywhere from emptying out the closets and we hadn’t cleaned up the room they were to stay in. I do not thrive in chaos. Actually, I handle chaos a lot like how I described handling the pandemic at the beginning of my post. I am ok with everything being perfect and I am ok with everything 100% falling apart but when things are in-between I can’t function.

I was really in no headspace to have houseguests but they’re here now so it is what it is. I’ve been feeling better as things around the house are getting done but even this morning I found myself ready to burst into tears because a cup was on the wrong shelf in the kitchen cabinets. Also, while its nice to catch up with family we don’t see as much, I feel like I’m not going to really be able to re-center until they are gone. I need that sense of normalcy back to help me realign the rest of my life.

I don’t really have any sort of enlightened conclusion to share. I just needed to vent.