The Weekend

I haven't blogged all weekend. Partly due to my father's surgery, and partly due to some minor sleep deprivation that occurs frequently living with two perpetual toddlers, I've felt a little depressed. I took a nap both today and yesterday, which helped.

Other things that helped:
1. My husband and I went out for dinner Saturday night to celebrate my birthday. It's a tradition in our marriage to dress up and go to a nice restaurant. There's a new French restaurant in town, so we thought we'd try that. We left at 5:00 and found that they didn't open until 6, so we got a few drinks at a bar called Mingles in downtown Moscow (ID) and walked around the almost-empty streets. (It was game day, a big deal in our little college town.) Fall is glorious here in Northern Idaho, so although it was a bit nippy, it was so pretty. At 6, we found that the restaurant was booked up with reservations, so we "settled" for The Red Door, which is more of a steakhouse. (Being a foodie in a small town is such a burden.) But I enjoyed the wine, the tuna steak (yum!), and the company.

2. Getting caught up with work. Also on Saturday, but in the afternoon, the kids were covered with our personal care workers, so I "disappeared" with my laptop to get more caught up with my progress notes for work. Lately, I've been doing paperwork at this cool little coffee shop called Buchers downtown. Being a college town, Moscow is pretty much completely wireless. So in spite of being a little down and even more isolated from my family than usual, I felt very thankful for living in this beautiful little college town.

3. I went to Mass. The homily was great, I was able to serve Communion, and I was with family. A few people were very sweet to my developmentally disabled little boy. Again, I was feeling thankful for God leading me to where I am at the current time.

The point of this post, I suppose, is that depression, even a mild case like I was feeling this weekend, over a situation I have no control over, doesn't have to paralyze me. In my work with clients, it often strikes me that in many cases, the difference between the mentally ill and the mentally healthy is the way we cope. It's sad that many mentally ill folks have never learned the skills to cope with the challenges that invariably happen in life.

So I'll probably be sad for a while, but that's okay. The important thing is to just keep moving and do the normal stuff. So tomorrow I'll get up, get my kids off to school, go to the gym, and work.