Some days, you just have to be blue...

Yesterday was my day off, and I woke up sad. It was cold and rainy, I had too much to do that I didn’t feel like doing, and I was missing my mom…

I know what you’re thinking…that I’m going to tell you a fabulous story about how the day was quirky and interesting, that I went out and had an amazing adventure, and that by the time I got home last night, I’d had a warm and fuzzy epiphany and found the silver lining.

However yesterday, that was not the case. I had a doctors appointment that took much longer than I’d planned. Afterwards, I went to the Barnes and Noble ten miles away…the only one left in Dallas it seems, as they recently closed the two that were close to my house…and they didn’t have the book I was looking for.  Then I went to the mall to pick up a few things at Sephora.

I wandered aimlessly through the mall, searching for something that might inspire me…that could make me smile…that would take away the empty feeling. But as we all know, there’s really nothing “out there” that can fill a void. Anything from the outside world is just a distraction…a band-aid.

So I left the mall empty-handed and drove back to Irving, in the relentless rain, on the impossibly gray day. I stopped at a busy intersection, and while I waited for the light to turn green, I noticed a cardboard box on the sidewalk that held some flowers, a cross, a photo of a child…and a little stuffed teddy bear.  Everything was soaked with rain, and one of the vases had turned over. The lump in my throat began to throb, and my chest felt heavy. I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. I just wanted my mother to be there…to put her hand on my head and tell me that everything was going to be ok…

Why am I telling you this? Because we think there’s always a solution…that if we’re feeling sad and down, we should be able to quickly sweep it under the carpet…that we should be able to instantly overcome whatever it is that’s making us sad by simply finding something to take our minds off of it…or that we should shake it off and be grateful for what we have. And then, we feel guilty because we can't snap out of it. But some days, you just have to be blue…

C