Embracing Eeyore

Its been an outrageously gloomy summer here in Northern California. No surprise for San Francisco - summer tends to be the foggiest and coldest part of the year, but we left the city and moved north, to the sun. And there hasn't been any, all summer.

And when I wake up to a freezing cold house and the view of damp drizzly fog out of every window, I want nothing more than to crawl straight back in bed and stay there, all day. And then when I have to get dressed and put on jeans and layers and a fleece and socks, I get cranky and frustrated and irritated and annoyed and gloomy and tired. And then that moods sinks into my body, my mind stays foggy and unclear and I have to somehow get it together to go downstairs to be a toddler's mom and not-so-affected-by-weather man's wife.

I am easily prone to depression, though I have never been properly diagnosed. It has appeared in my life when one phase has ended and another is yet to begin - like after college graduation and then again after graduating from my master's program. It has always involved my sense of purpose, or I suppose lack of purpose or uncertainty of purpose. For me becoming a mother is and was very connected to my sense of purpose as well - hence the reality that I have been feeling a bit gloomy. It is no surprise that depression appears so easily in the first year of motherhood - from sleep deprivation to unbalanced hormones to unmet expectations to loss or change of purpose to isolation, it blows me away that post-partum depression is still such a taboo and timid topic.

I decided that feeling a bit like Eeyore is okay. And I realized that the gloomy-doomyness can creep in at anytime - so instead of fearing it or getting caught up in it this time, I asked some questions, bought some hormone balancing formula at my local health food store, started to move my body, asked for a little help and waited. Waited for the sun to shine again.

And guess what, it did.