I knew immediately something was wrong the moment I woke up this morning. First it was Sunday. I have no particular problem with the day itself - it's just that I have so much old baggage full of Sunday issues dragging along behind. Secondly, it was a cool dreary damp beginning that did not improve with time. Thirdly and likely most importantly, I have not rested soundly lately for some reason and that alone has the potential to impair one's gait, to cloud one's focus, to cause one to doubt.
Suddenly I knew - I had a serious case of ennui. I spent most of the morning letting this cloud engulf me as I probed around for another cup of coffee and finally realizing that a proven remedy for this condition is a sandwich made of an English muffin, a patty of Jimmy Dean sausage (hot) and a wad of scrambled egg with a liberal dose of Tabasco Chipotle sauce mixed in.
It was a temporary fix, so to speak, as the sense of boredom again descended over the day. I began to reason out the situation like this: Do something - anything - just get busy. I have so many things to do that it would take the rest of the day to list them. That sounded way too boring to do. Problem is, I didn't want to do anything. Ennui is like that. It's self sustaining, or defeating if that makes more sense. Like a self fulfilling prophecy. "Oh, that's probably not going to work out." Sure enough it didn't.
I had a partner years ago when we were therapists together who used to say that when sad, or depressed, or bored or whatever you want to call it, just go with it for a while and you'll see it evaporate right before your eyes. Don't resist it for the more you do, the more it hangs in and grows in intensity. This is a technique that has worked for me over the years but it requires one magic element that only you or I can provide: the desire to move on in the sunlight. Ah, I just knew this was going to come up.
I am really not having that much of a problem with ennui, or whatever. I have managed to blot out two thirds of the day dealing with this condition and before you know it - after a session on the treadmill, a little stretching and a hot soaky, it will be cocktail time and the Devil can just get in line and wait her turn. See, I feel better already.
It just occurred to me that a trick I have used all my life to combat the ever present presence of self pity, boredom or sadness is to snack. Since May of this year I have not snacked at all. I mean it. OK, maybe one or two times but I have limited my eating to two meals a day, period. Nothing in between. With a little effort this system has aided me in loosing a bunch of ugly fat. I ain't going back to dealing with negative feelings with food. Drink? Perhaps, but not whole cans of salted nuts.
Getting back to today, I was looking in my freezer for some frozen green peppers for CA who is making turkey chowder for the evening meal and there was half a frozen pistachio muffin laying there in a plastic baggie. I have no idea how long it had lain there, but I immediately began to feel the load of the day lift off my shoulders. I probably should have just let the idea of the muffin do it's healing work but instead I re-heated some of the morning's darkroast and heated the remnants of the muffin and ate it.
I could just feel my pancreas firing off insulin I did not need but I now have hope and can see the sunshine in my soul once more. Ennui, my old friend, I know you are there. Give it a rest for a while. Perhaps I'll see you on the next dreary Sunday morning - OK?
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