Monday Morning Blues

It’s Monday. It’s Monday and it’s dreary and rainy. It’s Monday after my alone weekend with no obligations. It’s Monday and I’m working 1-9 instead of my normal 9-5 so I have more time to dread rejoining the real world. It also gives me more time to decide to write about some personal struggles of late.

The real world has not been great lately. It’s been a tough couple of years. Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of my mom’s death. A month after my mom’s death I accepted a transfer to a new job and left the place I had worked for 15 years. Changing jobs that soon after was probably not a great idea. I wonder if my mental health would be better if I had done my mourning in the more comfortable confines of my old job and with my friends there. The good thing about the change was and is the shorter commute. The shorter commute gave me more time with my daughter before she left for college. Now, less than two years after the other major life changes, my youngest kid has gone to college and we are empty nesters.

So, in two years – death of a loved one, job change and our youngest kid moved away. A lot of sadness and stress coupled with more time home alone. Unfortunately, more time home aloe means more time to dwell on the stress and the sadness. I have trouble leaving the stress of work at work. So, I end up at home alone for two hours with the stress of work added to the loneliness of having no one at home to talk to. I should probably find reasons to leave the house and occupy my brain to distract myself from the stress, but it’s easier to sit on the couch and watch TV.

So, what do I do? Leave the house when I get home, even if it is just to take the dog for a walk. Figure out a way to leave work at work. Decide if the stress is enough to consider another change. If so, be willing to do what it takes to make that change happen. Consider taking the step of finding a therapist to talk through my issues. Win the lottery so I never have to go to work again.

Dreary Weather, Dreary Mood

We were in India during monsoon season. It rained a little there, but most of the days were dry. It did flood in Mumbai and Delhi while we were there, but we were spared the really bad rains. We are making u for that now that we are home. We are on our 5th straight day of heavy rain in the forecast. It hasn’t rained for 5 straight days. Saturday was a total washout. It started raining in the morning and rained all day. I don’t have a rain gauge, so I don’t know what the totals were, but I know were probably got at least 5 inches of rain in the one day. The rest of the days have had some dry points and occasional sun, but the threat of heavy rain has been there. After a break on Monday where my house barely got any rain, we had a deluge yesterday morning. Some areas have reported over a foot of rain since Saturday. I think even people who love rain have to be sick of it by now. I’m ready to go back to our typical hot and sunny summer.

This constant dreary weather has not been good for someone who is already in a dreary mood. My daughter has her housing assignment and we are now officially less than a month away from her moving in to her dorm. I have less than a month before I start spending many hours alone and no one would want to spend many hours alone with me. Couple that with career and job dissatisfaction. Add in the aforementioned weather and it does not make for the best of moods.

I can’t change the empty nest thing, but I can make it easier by finding ways to fill the time besides sitting on the couch watching TV. I may not be able to change the job, but I can try either find some good or at the very least not take the bad home with me. I can’t change the weather and I can’t find any way to find good in constant rain, so I’m going to need the sun to come back so I can at least enjoy some time reading on my deck.

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A Cluttered Mind

For the past week I have been dealing with a mind cluttered with pessimistic and negative thoughts. I can’t seem to shake them. The first couple of days of this they kept me awake at night. I’m finally sleeping again, but I’m still in a spiral. Since I can’t declutter my brain I have tried decluttering other things.

My email inbox at work is empty. I finally went through and deleted old emails I no longer need and sorted the ones I need to save in to folders. Now I just need to remember what folders I used. That might be a challenge. My goal is to continue to keep control of my inbox so emails I haven’t answered don’t get pushed down to the point that I forget they exist. I think I will be successful for about a month and then it will get out of control again.

I did the same for my desk. I went through all of the stuff on my desk and got rod of everything I didn’t need. I put papers in appropriate files and stored them away. I am enjoying my cleaner work environment and hope I can keep it this way. I will likely be as successful at this as I am at the clean inbox task.

I’m hoping the uncluttered work environment will inspire my brain to unclutter itself. So far, that is not happening. Until then I will keep listening to my really loud music to drown out the thoughts in my head.

Do you ever get in one of these funks? How do you deal with it? Any tips?

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