Skip to main content

How to get happy...or at least feel better

So...it's been a tough couple of days. Mentally, physically, emotionally draining. Big Daddy and I stayed home together both Monday and Tuesday, just to get our heads back on and to spend time healing our tender family. Here's what we learned is the best way to shake away the blues:

1) Crank up the oldies station. Play it louder than your parents ever did. Motown is therapeutic. As are the BeeGees, Tom Jones, Neil Diamond, Earth Wind & Fire, and Prince. Sure it's tough that some of the songs from our own childhood are now played on the oldies station. But we love those songs! So turn it up, man. And dance til your old knees hurt.

2) Go out to lunch at your favorite pub, for which you happen to have a gift card, and drink a beer in the middle of the day. Even though you're certainly of age and you have no obligations to stay sober on a mental health day, there's still a little thrill that comes with drinking beer at noon on a Tuesday (a la Cheryl Crow).

3) Nap with your Sweet Boy in your arms. Breathe in his smell -- that special combination of outside air, earth, peanut butter, and baby shampoo -- and let him burrow his little body under your chin. Even when your arm falls dead asleep under his shoulders, you will feel good.

4) Play outside until it's too dark to see. Run in your yard with a soccer ball, let your husband tackle you into the mushy pile of leaves you didn't get around to raking up in the fall -- then beat him at a game of one-on-one in your driveway. Take photos of you and your husband and your kid making silly faces in the shadows of the giant oak tree. Draw fabulous gardens full of sidewalk-chalk flowers until every inch of your clothing is covered in pastel dust. Let the cool spring air purge all the badness away.

5) Eat ice cream for dinner...or whatever kind of junk food makes you happy. And let your child eat it too. In fact, just open the carton and each of you grab a spoon, then snuggle on the couch, licking your lips and making "mmm" noises.

6) Read your favorite picture book in your little guy's bed, kiss him goodnight, hear his little voice say "I love you, Mommy," and know that he means it more earnestly than anything that's ever been said before. Right then you'll know that you're going to be ok.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ottomania!

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about ottomans. A ridiculous amount of time, actually, given the number of other things I truly should focus my thoughts on. I find, though, that when the world outside gets scary (and scary is a truly relative term these days) I turn to online shopping for things I don't really need. Actually, it's more like online browsing; I rarely purchase. I spend hours searching for, oh, erasable colored gel pens or standing desks or all-natural curly-hair gel or the perfect black sweater. (Yes, these are things I've fixated on over this winter; I still haven't clicked "buy" nor settled on any of them.) This week, it's ottomans. By the way, my girl  BrenĂ©  Brown would call this behavior numbing . I'm okay with that. Because online browsing is way less detrimental (so far) than chain smoking, which is what I'd really like to do when the world is scary. It's a way to escape, to daydream, to focus on things tha

If the brain-mouth filter turned off...

"Mommy," he asks, reaching for my hand as we walk out of the grocery store, "wouldn't it be cool if we had some kind of a hat that when you put it on your head, you start to speak all of your thoughts?" His eyes are wide, hair fringing the blue. He's letting it grow until spring (exactly 21 days away, as he explained this morning) and he looks shaggy and wild. Like one of Peter Pan's lost boys in sweatpants and a Star Wars t-shirt. We've just ordered a cake for his birthday party - celebrating 8 years at a trampoline park this weekend. "Can you imagine it?" he asks, "if everyone could hear your thoughts all the time? Ha!" I love ideas like this. They pop out of his mouth in unexpected moments, little gems that generally begin with what if? or wanna know something? I hope his mind always asks those questions. But wow...can you imagine it? A hat that turns off that brain-to-mouth filter? What would he hear from me, right in thi

Lost between books

This is kinda what the inside of my brain looks like right now...a big see of books that don't interest me. I'm in a restless state between novels right now, and it's really uncomfortable. You know that feeling when you finish a really good one and don't know what to do next? I needed a couple days to process the book I finished last week ( Everything I Never Told You , by Celeste Ng), but then suddenly found myself without a Next Book. It doesn't happen often (I usually have 4-5 books going at once, all different genres and types), but every now and again I get stuck in this drift. Nothing really interests me enough to invest money and time in. So. Weird. I've spent way too much time over the weekend downloading samples to my Kindle, reading reviews on Goodreads, and perusing the library reading lists. Me without a book is like a guitarist without her guitar or a soccer player without a field to run on. I just feel a bit lost, even irritable. I'm just