I’m having a bit of a day. There’s no particular reason for it, I don’t think, I’m just having a bit of a day.
Turns out, so is wifey.
I knew something was bothering her. Spend a couple of decades with someone and you’d have to be as dumb as a rock, a total narcissist, or a stone cold sociopath to be unable to interpret her moods through her actions.
Anyway, I know better than to press her on it. She just needs some time and space to process it. Meantime, the driveway needs shoveling, the cars need cleaning off, and hers needs to be gassed up for the week. So, with a little help from number one son, I get that stuff out of the way.
Next, she’s looking for a book to loan her sister, and I’ve got a pretty good mental inventory of the places things are stored around this joint, so I dig up the crates it’s most likely to be stored in.
As I’m doing this, two things occurred. First, my sense of impending doom (that’s how a lot of my bad days manifest themselves) lessens. Which is nice.
And then, as I was digging through the boxes of books, she came up behind me, gave me a hug, and a kiss, and thanked me for the above.
I’ve mentioned it along the way, if you want to get a handle on your mental health problems, a great strategy is forward motion. Keep yourself busy doing something.
Even better, keep yourself busy doing something useful. That’s all I was doing, keeping myself busy doing a few useful things. Dealing with my bad day, so that my poor, long suffering bride didn’t have to worry about my crap at the same time she was dealing with her own.
And the result? In working on my own stuff, while getting a few little things done for her, I inadvertently helped her with her sense of overwhelm.
