Day Off

 It’s a beautiful morning. The sun is shining, there is a nice breeze blowing and best of all Parker is in the backyard playing with his water table and giving me time to come here and write. The past couple of days have been rough physically. It’s been my own fault. I took my last dose of antidepressants on Saturday and planned to go the the pharmacy Sunday to get more. Sunday was my 5th open in a row and when I got home at 20 after 3 I was too tired to leave the house. What I should have done is gone straight to Shoppers after work so I would have had some meds for Monday morning. Long story short I didn’t get my refills until late yesterday afternoon (Tuesday). BAD MOVE. Surprisingly it wasn’t the emotional side of things that got me this time. It was the physical symptoms that made Monday and Tuesday almost unbearable. I felt like I was coming down with the flu. I had chills that alternated with hot flashes. I was nauseas, headache-y, dizzy, thirsty. I was miserable. It makes sense now – I was going through withdrawals from the medication. The longer I am on it, the less I can go without it. It used to be that I could skip taking my meds for 3 or 4 days before I felt any symptoms – emotional or otherwise (most often emotional), but now it’s within hours of not taking it I can feel myself slipping. It’s kind of scary that my body has become so dependant on a chemical cocktail to be "normal". I made sure to take my meds as soon as I got out of bed this morning to let them do thier job early in the day to even me out. Someone at work was talking about a supplement called HTP5 that apparently helps the seratonin uptake – I need to look into this and see if I can take something like this with my meds. Maybe it’s that missing piece to my depression puzzle. Maybe it’s not, but it can’t hurt to look into it. Let me see….what else….nothing much. I’m off today but I am taking Parker to the dayhome at noon. I should use the time to catch up on some housework and laundry, but instead I am going to a friends house to sit in the sun, have some sangria and enjoy some adult time for a change. These opportunities for time with friends, without the kids, doesn’t come up very often, so I am going to take it today – guilt free. My mother in law came over yesterday. Sure wish I had known in advance she was coming – I would have made sure that the kitchen was clean. Instead, she showed up unexpectedly and saw 3 days worth of dishes piled up in the sink. Thank God Rob decided to clean bathrooms and the living room on the weekend. The state of our house before that was disgusting. I wouldn’t have been able to let her into the house if it still looked like that. She is coming back on Saturday to drop off our taxes, so I will spend Friday deep cleaning, so she can see that we do look after the house. Yah, we look after it well when we know that someone is coming to visit. Otherwise we have a pretty "lived in" environment. It’s not how I like my house to look, but it’s our reality with us both working full time and never having days off together. It is what it is. I think I am off to make some pancakes for me and the little man then to enjoy my day off. Truly off – no work responsibility, no housework and no parenting. NICE!