Mental Health Monday: Muscle Relaxers, Facetime, and Air Conditioning

It’s been two months since my mother’s death. Most of the paperwork is done now… I only need to close out our joint checking account. And although I had “lost” her years ago to Alzheimer’s, and there was much dysfunction in our relationship, I feel that I have been grieving her death in an unexpected way these past couple of months. Just feeling “down” more often than usual.

It’s hard to sort out what is grief and what can be attributed to other factors, like:

Depression

Excessive heat and humidity

Loss of energy for exercising

Boredom with dieting/counting calories

Weight gain

And… for the past two days, severe muscle spasms in my back. The kind that send breath-taking pain through your back when you change positions from sitting to standing. This afternoon I took a two and a half hour nap, and I never take naps.

So that’s it for Mental Health Monday. No inspiring words, just life going on with all of its ups, and for today, many downs.

But—wait! A few minutes ago our daughter called to Facetime with us and we saw our almost one-year-old granddaughter WALKING and laughing, along with her four-year-old sister. Definitely lifted my spirits. We’ll be visiting them in Denver in a few weeks… hopefully my back will be better by then. (I think I caused the spasms by lifting a heavy pot from Home Depot on Saturday, and also a large bag of bird seed, which I had placed inside the pot in my shopping basket.) So for now, I’m thankful for muscle relaxers, air conditioning, and Facetime.