Moodiness and self care

I wish I had an explanation for my mood today. General moodiness started to creep in last night and has settled in for a bit. The feeling is a combination of ennui and dissatisfaction. I look at my life and I find it lacking. There is no joy, only a grouchiness at the world around me stemming from a vague sense of unfairness and inequality. My personal demons are rampaging as well. I’m getting fatter. I’m not a patient parent. I am losing the ability to be nice to children and small animals. Not good.

I used to be a more optomistic person. I didn’t suffer from these bouts of emotional malaise. I felt free and light and fostered a healthy believe that hard work and opportunity were all that I needed. I wonder what brings me to this. I know what doesn’t. I have a good job and a good family and I make enough money and have health insurance. I’m even doing something that has boatloads of promise and a useful, meaningful work.

There’s a part of me that thinks it’s time for a tune up in the psychologists office. But that is one more thing on the list to do in an already heavy schedule. I don’t do my share of the housework or cooking, and I feel that I should. I think of “work-life balance” and the thought is a little bit laughable.

It’s easy to think of my ideal version of self care. Here’s the list:

• A walk outside every day with the dog
• Pilates or yoga every day
• Therapy sessions once a month
• Writing or some other creative endeavor every day
• Massages once a month
• semi-annual weekends away with husband
• semi-annual weekends away with friends (preferrably camping)
• Annual retreat to an ashram or spa, alone
• “Artist dates” to museums, city sites, or nature preserves on the weekends
• Game days or other social events with friends

Some of this is attainable, most of it if our family had a better capacity for planning and saving. Now that I have written the list, I don’t think the problem is attainability, but consistency. Time is so valuable for me and I feel that I have to steal, beg, and scrape every bit of it for myself. With so little time with family and so little time “doing my share,” I find it difficult to justify self care of this kind. And so whatever I do get feels like stolen moments.

So that is a starting point of sorts. Figure out what I can do and when –regularly.