LAZY BRAIN

I don't know....I don't even want to write this post.  I don't want to do anything. 

I feel worn out.  Exhausted.  Lethargic.  Not physically exactly, but mentally.

I'm surprised by this.  Six days ago I came home from a nearly 3 week Hawaiian vacation -- perhaps my best trip there ever, which is saying a lot since we've gone annually for over 20 years.  And it was totally chill and relaxing.

The day after we got home I tackled a long to-do list in preparation for a big family gathering the next day for Father's Day, a DIL birthday, and a little thing we decided to surprise the fam with -- Christmas in June, since Covid stole our family Christmas gathering.  We put up a small tree and I spent a couple hours getting all the cute and kitschy Hawaii souvenir gifts Christmas-wrapped and under the tree for the family members.  They seemed to be delighted by the surprise and we all had a great time together with a picnic dinner on the deck (the year's first cedar plank grilled Sockeye salmon! Yum!) and celebration of special days.

The very next day, our granddaughters and their year old pup arrived for a 4 day stay.  So this week has been a whirlwind of high energy, non-stop activities, and puppy chaos.   Our 11 y/o asked to have a friend here for a sleepover and I said yes since I know this girl and she is sweet and polite.  So we went shopping for junk food, picked her up, and came back to all girls, all the time giggling and eating and singing and dancing and playing darts and pool and painting pictures, playing games, watching some noisy something or other on Netflix...on and on.  Our 6 y/o was not left out; there were remarkably few arguments as the big girls welcomed her into their orbit.  But we discovered that our Kid Friendly supper of pizza didn't work for our sleepover guest who has a allergy to something in pizza (not the cheese, she says), so I prepared something else for her at the last minute.  They were all asleep by 11:00 which I considered a victory.

Next day Hub made everybody pancakes (he's our breakfast and dinner cook for the week) and we set up a homemade "slip and slide" in the yard and turned on the sprinklers.  The puppy chased the sliders across the visqueen slippery surface, tearing it with his toenails, and barking incessantly, so he had to be leashed and quieted but it ended up being fun for all. Even Hub took a few turns and the girls thought it was pretty cool that their grandpa could show them a few moves -- he got out the Boogie Board and showed them how to run and lay on that for extra slippery sliding.  When the friend went home, we started making paper mache volcanoes, ate supper, went for a neighborhood walk, watched a movie.

Yesterday I drove 11 y/o to her friend's house 15 miles south for a day with her family to celebrate the friend's last day of school with a swim party.  So the 6 y/o had us to herself.   Hub made her some breakfast and played a game of darts. She and I shopped for paint to paint the volcanoes, painted that and other things, made felted animals from a kit, read a book, took some quiet time with her favorite kid YouTube videos while I scrolled FB,  picked a first early bowl of raspberries from the garden, had a "spa day" whirlpool bath with bath bomb and fancy shampoo, ate supper on the deck and then watched a movie, during which her sister came home.  Interspersed were lots of get this get that, eat this eat that, clean up this clean up that...take the pup out, mop up spilled paint, sweep crumbs, find lost thises and thats...sigh.  

Today...11 y/o will paint her volcano.  We hope to blast them today!  I don't know what else we will do. I do know we all love each other beyond measure and we've had a great time.  AND we will all be waiting to get the ETA text from Mom and Dad.  LOL  

So, I guess my low energy is really internal, since externally I've been really putting it out there non-stop since we got home.  

But I still worry a bit that I don't seem to be able to concentrate on much, even before this week, even while on vacation -- so many good intentions for reading my many half-read books, doing some voter suppression activism calls, taking all the classes and webinars I've registered for about yoga and brain neuro-plasticity info that I'm passionate about, listening to podcasts from which I've fallen behind. I worry that I have very little interest in seeing people, and even some resentment that everyone wants to forget the pandemic even happened and now we should just all resume regular programming.  No!  

This sounds like depression, but it is NOT.  I know depression as an old, familiar, and sometimes intimate companion and this is not it.  But what is it?

I just want to sit and stare.  Breathe.  Practice some yoga.  Watch stuff on TV.  (I have a list.) I don't want to think about my ignored gardening chores, or all the summer house projects we intend, or plan or do anything much at all.  My brain seems to be barely online.  My body just wants to walk, stretch, maybe float in a kayak, and sip a cool drink.

We will have outrageously hot temps this weekend and into next week for our part of the country -- mid-upper 90s.  It's rare to have home A/C here so it will be very uncomfortable.  I plan to do as little as possible.  This might be my chance to just "veg" and figure out why I'm so uninterested in "doing" and for a few days just be content to "be".

At least, that's the view from here...©