On Saturday, we took Madison and most of her belongings to Kentucky. We spent the night at the Galt House and got to see Carter and Noah. We walked over to Bearno's by the Bridge for some of Louisville's best pizza. Afterwards, we hung out in the hotel room and played with Noah. Rachel came over when she got off of work, and they were going to spend the night. But Noah got fussy and wouldn't go to sleep, so they wound up leaving.
Sunday morning came too quickly. After checking out of the hotel, we met Carter and Noah for breakfast at IHOP then told them goodbye. From there, we drove to Jerry and Meghan's condo. Jerry wasn't there, but Meghan helped us unload and showed us Maddie's room. She had a nice double bed, but they hadn't gotten the mattress for it yet (apparently they got it that night), as well as a bedside table and lamp.
Madison didn't seem to be sad to be leaving, but I could barely hold it together to get out of there without breaking down. We hugged her, told her goodbye, and got in the car and left as empty nesters headed back to Memphis.
This week has been terrible. I didn't get out of bed for almost 3 days. I haven't been eating (this is certainly the first time depression has affected me in that way). I don't want to see or talk to anyone except Andrew. It was so depressing to go to Wednesday night dinner with the family that I almost couldn't bring myself to go. I did though, and that felt like a big step. Afterwards, I visited with Missy since it was our night to spend the night over there, but Andrew had to work late. I stayed there until he got there and then went home. I usually enjoy spending the night over there, but I just wanted to get back to my house. In the past couple of days, I've resolved not to go back to bed after getting up and to do some chores around the house.
Andrew has been so incredibly patient and supportive, but I know that he's having a hard time too - dealing with his own sadness and with a nonfunctional adult. He shouldn't have to shoulder all that, so I'm trying to be a little more functional. He's had to work doubles all week to cover another instructor's class and has been taking care of the garden, the pets, the dishes, the laundry - pretty much everything. I really want to step up for him.
Also, I feel so ambivalent about my research. It takes a ridiculous amount of will power to go to campus and water my plants every couple of days. If I don't do at least that much, they will die, but it's hard to care. I really need to be setting up for my experiments, but, while the plants are still too small to work on, it's hard to get motivated to do that either. I had been planning on doing a bunch of plant grinding, but we've been in the middle of a heat wave, and the building I work in at NSL doesn't have air conditioning, so I'm going to wait on that until the weather gets back to some bearable temperatures, like in the 90's.
In spite of all this ambivalence, I still really want to be successful. I have some things that should be motivating me to be more productive (upcoming conferences and my departmental research update), but I can't even wrap my mind around it all. I was thinking about taking the semester off, but I'm not sure that's really the best plan. I know that all grad students go through periods where they feel like they are failing in their research, but it's hard to feel like that in addition to all the other depressed feelings I have.
The worst part of this situation is that I am still completely in mourning for my mom, and everything with Madison leaving has left me at an all-time low. The sadness I feel for each event feeds into the other, and I just want to go back to sleep. I keep trying to tell myself all these self-help maxims, like "fake it 'til you make it" or "this too shall pass" or "the only way forward is through it". I was even seriously getting the Serenity Prayer tattooed on my forearm, but that's probably something I should think about more before something so permanent.
Anyway, I thought that maybe writing about how I'm feeling would make me feel a little better. It hasn't yet, but maybe it will.
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