Dear Diary, I’m in the Muck.

An entry from my journal:

July 15, 2020

I’ve been feeling guilty and frustrated with myself lately. I have had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, a hard time feeling eager about working during the day, and even on things that would normally fully excite me, I feel, well, just blah.

This is unlike me; very out of character. I always have a to-do list and action plan I’m eager to tackle every day and I don’t like being so idle like this.

I’ve been slowly starting to feel this way since about April. It’s been deepening gradually and today I am fully in it. In the muck. Logically I know it’s probably a mild depression, likely from all the unknown… job uncertainty, sprinkle in some pandemic, what the heck is happening with the kids’ school, lack of clarity of the future. It’s the perfect recipe I suppose.

It feels a little like the baby blues I had with Jo.

And then on top of all that… I feel so guilty for not doing enough all day. For sitting here writing instead of emptying the dishwasher. For scrolling Facebook instead of planning meals for the week. I need to start exercising or diving into a project or just being grateful for all I have. 

But here I sit. In a funk. Feeling depressed.

And there is also this little part of me that just says lean in, Michaela. Lean in to this rest. There is a lot of uncertainty going on and you have been blessed with the luxury to be still. To sit in your funk.

Maybe I just need to listen… to my head, my body, God, my heart.

Should I be leaning into this time of quiet?  Maybe my brain will work in new ways? Maybe I need to stop fighting it?

I have been asking God to lead me and saying that prayer with such fervor lately, yet I feel like I have gotten no reply in return. But maybe the reply I am expecting, the energy I want to take over me and push me in the right direction… maybe that’s not what I am being sent. Maybe the answer to those prayers is nothing. It’s silence. It’s still because I need to be still.

Maybe I should lean in. Maybe in this time of rest and reflection and slowness and lack of motivation I will find what I am looking for.

Okay. So even as I just wrote that I felt my guilt lighten a bit. My body relaxed a little. Maybe what I really need will start flowing through my heart and brain if it isn’t encumbered by the rushing, tumultuous waters it has recently been.

It’s okay to feel tired, Michaela. It’s okay to feel weak and weary. Lean in to rest. Lean in to rest.

____

As I closed my journal on that day, an overwhelming thought came over me that this was meant to be shared with other moms.

It’s a little personal and not the most carefully crafted essay, but it is a look inside my mind through my pen as I worked through why I have been feeling the way I am feeling and how I should deal with it.

I hope that sharing this page with you all maybe makes you feel less alone if you’re feeling depressed or down, more normal, and ultimately okay with having a down time in your life. Especially now, when our world and what is going on in it likely has all of our mental and emotional buckets completely filled to capacity. Or completely emptied.

I think as moms and career women and achievers and doers we always feel like we need to be going 100% All. The. Time.  So when our body and mind shut down and go into low power mode we think we are feeling depressed and something is wrong. But maybe it’s not wrong. Maybe it’s exactly right.

Maybe we just need to lean in to rest. Let go of the things we can let go of and just lean in to rest.