Number Nineteen
Janie,
Typically when I write to you, I look through a list of notes I’ve jotted down throughout the days. This week my list was blank. Mostly due to the repetitiveness of life right now and lack of inspiration, but also because I’m not living very much in the present. My mind is so focused on what life will hopefully look like a few months down the road. To be honest, I haven’t made a huge effort to wrangle my thoughts back enough to nail down many specific moments or ideas.
My postpartum depression seems to be at its peak right about now (I hope it doesn’t get worse), so it’s made basic thinking very challenging. I listen to lots of background music during the day because it really brings my mood down when the house is too quiet. “I’m not my season” by Fleet Foxes came on the other day and really had me choked up. I don’t find a lot of music relatable anymore but that one really resonated with me. Today, however, I felt a little different. Still pretty down and so tired, but my mind didn’t feel totally blank, or robotic. The best way I can describe it is that I was able to daydream a little without using the daydream a means to escape my current situation. I was actually feeling very appreciative of my role as a mother and felt very motivated to do better as a mom. In a way, I feel overall just a little bit lighter. Maybe it’s my hormones starting to balance out of little. Maybe it’s the excitement of knowing that you and other friends are visiting for the holidays. Who knows. But it’s nice to feel somewhat purposeful again, even when the more frustrating parts of life seem unrelenting.
I guess the overall theme around here lately has been “messes that could have easily been avoided”. I won’t go into the nitty gritty with the main culprit - blowouts - but, long story short, there’s been a Kudos-and-any-other-diaper-brand-I-approve-of-shortage in our area so I’ve had to use sizes that aren’t ideal, and you know how that goes…But the worst mess that still has yet to be cleaned up, because it’s quite toxic, is a plastic lid that melted in our oven. Long story short, again, our pediatrician came over for the girls’ regular check ups and we were running behind on chores… so naturally we shoved all our dirty dishes in the oven. I forgot about this when Sunny begged me to let us make “blueberry pie muffins” (blueberry muffins). So, I preheated the oven and well…
This is the last one that I’ll share because I doubt these are nearly as interesting as I find them to be. Silouan has been purchasing many cases of City Wide pale ale lately because they sell very large and reasonably prices cases of it at Costco. However, the past few cases we’ve purchased, every can has exploded whenever you open them. I forget this every time - even if Silouan reminds me (and he usually does, sometimes 10 seconds before I open it.) So cans of beer that I don’t even like have been exploding all over the house.
On a completely different note, our childhood coffee shop is about to open its third location in Clayton, and I noticed the theme has a sort of old vinyl record store vibe going on. Wouldn’t be my first choice, so I mentioned this to Silouan. He asked what kind of theme I would choose for my own shop, if I had one. It took me a minute but I decided that my coffee shop would be “shelved dreams” themed. I couldn’t begin tell you exactly what that would look like, but I do know that I would have weekly drawings for a free beverage. I’d have people write down a dream they gave up on or put off, and they’d put the dream in the jar for a chance to win.
Can’t wait to see you so soon!
-Lydia