January Funk

We officially have less than one week left of January, and thank goodness for that.  This month has gone fast enough, I guess, but we've definitely gotten into that time where winter starts to seem endless and everything is just a bit blah.  This seems to be a thing for me now, at this time of year specifically, and I've generally blamed it on being off work in the winter two out of three years a while back--once for maternity leave, and once when I lost my job.  Part of me feels like my body just got used to being able to hole up in the house in the winter and cocoon whenever I felt like it.  I think there's probably more to it than that, but that seems to be what I long for the most.

I'm starting to think this is some form of Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Not a severe one, to be clear, but it makes sense.  We're in the depths of the dark winter, as only in the last couple weeks have we seen even a glimpse of daylight during the evening commute for the first time in months.  But mornings are still so dark, and no joke, every morning when I wake up I sort of want to cry and whine a bit because I just don't want to get up.  Look, I know I need to go to bed earlier, but when you crave your alone time without the kids, you tend to stretch it as long as possible.  But even still, it goes deeper than just being tired.  There is some inkling of hopelessness when I wake up and see that it's time to consider getting up, and lately I just have an even harder time doing it.  I want to stay in bed, snuggle in, and rest.  Ironically, when I get to do that on weekends, usually I end up feeling even more sluggish when I finally do get up, but still...it's my first instinct.

I know mornings aren't the easiest around our house, particularly until Jacob's medicine has kicked in, but I hesitate to think that's the main culprit.  So, then maybe it's my job, but that's confusing to me as well.  I like my job.  I don't have any specific complaints about it.  I'm grateful for it.  But man, I just don't want to go.  Lately I'm also really distracted while I'm there.  I'm going to guess the latter issue is more of a sleep deprivation thing, but I literally cannot figure out why I'm feeling like this.  Is it because I'm burned out and need a real vacation?  Maybe, since I never did take a full week off last year.  Many short breaks are good, but I'm thinking there's probably something about a long break that's a bit more rejuvenating.  I don't know if I want to drag in the whole "Craig and I need an 'us time' vacation" issue here, but I suppose the lack of said bonding time could be bringing down my general mood overall.  On the bright side, the kids have slowly begun to learn to play together, so the constant stream of trouble has slowed a bit (at least in phases), but we still have frequent flare-ups and I don't trust them to not be jerks if we leave them with family while we go on a trip.  So that's an issue.  But is it really all of that?

Some days I think it's just mom guilt.  Almost every day Carter begs to stay home.  Much like me, I don't think he actually hates daycare.  He learns a ton and generally seems to enjoy what he's doing there.  I mean, he'll complain about stuff, but sometimes I think he just wants something to complain about.  His teachers generally have great things to say about him, and he often doesn't want to leave when I pick him up, so I don't think anything is truly amiss.  But like me, he just doesn't want to go.  He wants to hole up at home and hang out.  We're doing that Wednesday, by the way, since I had a day to take and I had promised him a Carter-Mommy day this month.  But whether we have one scheduled or not, he asks for it almost every single day.  We talk about why we can't do it all the time.  Then he gives me a big hug and kiss when I leave, and of course I'd much rather take him home and get that treatment all day.  But I can't.  Subconsciously I probably know his little kid time is extremely limited and I want to take advantage while I can, but clearly that's not happening.  But every day is a struggle to leave him. 

I just feel like getting through each workday is a means to an end.  Even though evenings in our house are far from harmonious, I know that evenings are my chance to relax and do something I'd much rather be doing.  So, I just push through the workday waiting for 5pm, push through pickup, dinner, and bedtime, then savor each bit of freedom I have after that.  That's probably why I wish away my weeks, just hoping for the weekend where I can get it in slightly larger quantities.  I know I shouldn't (the kids are growing up fast enough, after all), but I do.  One of the things that stood out most to me when I was off work was that the efforts I made all day directly helped the people that were closest to me, and that felt so much better somehow.  I didn't mind doing errands and cleaning because I had the time and it all felt like a direct benefit to everyone in the house.  I had time to think through problems and fix them properly.  Even better, I could actually do something for myself on a regular basis.  Nowadays it's just about cramming in whatever I have the energy for.  Speaking of which, it probably doesn't help that I haven't felt 100% since around October, so maybe that's a contributor, too.

I think I've also identified that one of my biggest issues right now is that I don't have anything big to look forward to.  It seems like most people have a trip planned, or some big event, or even weekly or every-other-week outings (maybe with friends or a spouse) that keep them going.  It's like the carrot on the end of the stick, you know?  But I don't really feel like we have anything like that right now.  We don't have a social life, we don't travel for fun, and I often wonder how we'd do anything anyway because I'm always exhausted and feel guilty when I do finally have something going on.  Without anything like that, though, every day is just another day among endless days, rather than being one day closer to something good.  Even worse, without  a "good" target, what if it's another day closer to something bad?  With the flu epidemic lately and lots of other bad news, I just feel like I'm obsessing over the bad possibilities and don't have anything good to outshine them.  It's exhausting.

Ultimately I just feel like my body and my heart are pulling me home.  It worries me that this is some sort of unseen, unknown force that's a precursor to something, but maybe I'm just plain lazy.  I don't know.  I'm hoping that things will get better as we get into February.  My work flow will change again (more urgent deadlines, so maybe that will force me to focus), Valentine's Day and Carter's birthday will be in sight, and we'll be getting more daylight.  It looks like the weather might turn colder again, though, so that will be a struggle again.  But for now I'm just stuck in a rut and spring  (and some fun) needs to hurry up!