PEANUT BUTTER MOOD
5.2.07

I have been sitting here for the last hour trying to figure out how best to describe my mood. I've decided that it's kind of like peanut butter. Now, I rather like peanut butter, and it would be nice to be feeling creamy or crunchy like Skippy or Peter Pan or Jiffy (or whatever it's called), but the mood I'm in is nothing like the images these brands evoke. I feel heavy and trapped and stuck and it is difficult to think clearly. Today is the kind of day when my brain won't get going, when my body is slow moving, my energy low and my perspective on the smearing side. I want to tell people to stop smiling, to STFU, and to put a post-it on my door that says: Out of Order.

I'm not sure what to do except, well, just accept that I'm stuck in this peanut butter. Part of me knows that I will manage to get through, but as I sit here in my office, staring at the screen, watching the time pass and the students cycle by, the other part of me wonders how I'll manage the next 12 hours. And how long this mood will last. It could be worse, I suppose. I'm not contemplating jumping off the building's roof, or sending out an email to the whole department about how to change the world.

When I dropped off my son, O, at school today, it was raining and the sky was grey. He looked up at me with his big, 5-year old, brown eyes and said, "Mommy. I just really don't want to be here today. I don't do very well when it rains." I looked at him straight in the eyes and said, "Yeah, me too." I gave him a big squeeze and reassured him that I would be back soon, but my god, did I want to scoop him up and just run. I wanted us to get away from our peanut butter routines and realities.

Sometimes when I feel like this, I think of the Little Engine That Could, and I push on. Since my diagnosis, I have learned to cope by lowering my expectations whenever days like this come along. Sometimes I try to figure out the trigger; other times, I just say, whatever. I tell myself that it's okay not to answer every email, to do 2 things instead of 3, or maybe just one, or maybe none. I tell myself, it's okay. I will always have days like this, and they shall pass. And then, I tell myself, everyone feels this way every now and then. Everyone must have days when they feel like peanut butter: It's both normal and it's bipolar.

I think I will go home early and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today, just like my son is having. If you can't beat it, eat it.