Operation Get My Mojo Back!

The other day when I lost it in Stretch and Flex class, bringing on a flow of tears that aren’t completely under control even today, I realized that I have a problem and I need a plan. A post-menopausal women can’t stay weepy this long without having “Aunt Flo” as an excuse, and a widow over two and a half years out can’t blame it all on lingering grief. (Well, she could but I’m almost sure that’s not the whole ball of wax entrapping me.) Something is wrong. The signs have been there since the Fourth of July weekend, ignored hoping my body and mind would self correct. Mild depression are the dirty little words I’m applying to the poor state of my grey matter. Gasp, I said it out loud! Well, not exactly but I did type it out.

When I was growing up there would be times when my mom played Solitaire over and over again. She’d pull up a red leather footstool and deal the cards, play the tricks, until I would go daffy watching her. I didn’t play the game myself until after my husband had his stroke. That’s when I bought a tiny deck of cards at a hospital gift shop and I carried it everywhere we went for the next 12 years. Spouses of disabled people spend a lot of time in waiting rooms. I became my mother only with a twist that, I thought, set me apart from the woman I didn’t understand growing up. I bought a book titled 101 Ways to Play Solitaire. Yes, I played the game that drove me daffy as a kid but I was learning 101 new ways to numb my brain, to turn it off so I didn’t have to have think about the serious issues going on in my life. Bottom line: This paragraph is leading up to another round of True Confusions: I’ve been on another binge of Solitaire the past few weeks. I should have picked up on that clue right away. I didn’t.

Clues number two, three, four and five: I’m not paying attention to nutrition, I’m on a sugar binge. I’m not getting enough physical exercise…or sleep. I’m not keeping my house as picked up and neat as usual. “Okay,” the right side of my brain said to my left side, “It’s time to climb the ladder back out of this hole you’re in. Go get your mojo back!” I say that as I kick myself for not going to a wedding at Niagara Falls that my whole family is attending this weekend. I could have used the break, even though it seemed like too much trouble, money and distance at the time I sent back my RSVP. Anyway, the two sides of my brain have worked out a plan to turn things around.

- Don’t drop out of those exercise classes I started at the senior hall last week. Great. I have two weeks to get in the habit of going then they are closing for two weeks to do yearly building maintenance.

- Quit buying sugar filled comfort foods!  Bad girls do that, good girls make kale chips.

- Good girls also sign up for the summer salads cooking class to use up the gift certificate I won last fall for the fancy chef’s school. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take place until the middle of August and unfortunately, a month ago I signed up for an ice cream social coming up on Tuesday. Ice cream is the mother lode of comfort foods for me. (Check this one off the list. I registered for the class in the middle of the last night.)

- Good girls also put their new high-tech, custom shoe orthotics to better use than just walking around the house. (Ohmygod, those things make a difference as they should for $250. My orthopedics doctor has them made and they require you to walk barefoot across a mat with sensors in it, making your feet glow up in bright neon colors on a computer screen.)

- Weed myself off from watching daybreak-to-bedtime news. Maybe I’ll pig out on the Hallmark movies---those sappy love stories with happy endings, but only after a widow or divorcee goes through hell after losing husband number one before husband number two shows up to save the day. Formula fiction, that usually ends with a wedding that the x-floral designer me can critique.

- Stay off the political debate sites. In other words tune out until the world leaders tune back in and do something constructive towards a more peaceful co-existence and/or my liberal soul doesn’t feel compelled to cry over all the injustices on earth. I can’t fix the world, I need to concentrate on fixing me.

- Take more sleeping pills. One every night for a week in an effort to reset my body clock should do the trick.

- Get a new computer chair that gives me more back support. Back pain is part of the reason I'm not sleeping well.

Well, there it is, my plan for Operation Get My Mojo Back. I hope it works. ©