Mom's Birthday and Coffee

Yesterday was my mom’s birthday. I went home to spend the evening with her and the family as my birthday present to her. I can’t buy her anything for her birthday so I hoped just being home would be enough. She was kind of depressed yesterday. I think she has mood issues. Sometimes she’s fine and bubbly and all energy. At other times she depressed and mopey and doesn’t want to do anything except feel sorry for herself. Is she manic-depressive? Maybe. She won’t go to a doctor to get anything diagnosed, though. She’d rather work through it herself, either because she’s stubborn and wants to do it herself or she’s stubborn and wants to feel sorry for herself. Either way, it gets a little frustrating being at home with her like that. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother deeply and only want her to be happy but I feel like she does a little bit of this to herself.

Maybe my feelings about this are my impressions being put onto her. I think she should be more positive and less down on herself because I would never do something like that to myself. I try to avoid wallowing in self-pity and frustration because it doesn’t do any good – a lesson I learned from her. Its fine to wallow for a little bit but then get up and do something. Don’t just sit there stewing about your problems because that won’t fix them. Stew for a few minutes then figure out ways to make it better. In my mom’s case, that might mean not doing as much. She’s definitely one of those women who try to do too much and then get burned out. That’s a lot of what causes her depressive modes. She “fails” to do something then feels horribly guilty about it and she needs to stop feeling that way. No one can do everything. Trust me, I know, because I try to do everything as well, and it just doesn’t work out all of the time.

I have more frustrations with my Chemistry group. We’re working on a poster presentation of the work we did in lab. Only they are all in the Tuesday afternoon lab together and I’m in the Thursday morning lab. I can’t go to their lab because I have class at that time and they won’t come to my lab because it is “too early in the morning.” So, they worked on the presentation this past Tuesday afternoon then assigned me to work on writing up the data that they collected and interpreted. They handed me the graphs yesterday afternoon and I’m looking at them now. I’ve no idea what they finally decided was in their compounds and how to interpret their data because I’m not the one who worked on it. Why would they assign the only person in the group to not work on the data they collected to interpret the data they collected? Does that makes sense to anyone else? It doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m sitting here looking at these graphs and charts and I could probably make sense of them if I had to sit down and think hard about (which I probably should do) but why should I re-think all of this information if they’ve all done it already? Then, I’m going to interpret the data one way and they are going to interpret the data another and when I’ve got the slides prepared they are going to look at it and say, “That’s wrong.” I can’t win. I can’t wait to get a new group.

Ash Wednesday mass last night was so crowded! I’ve never seen it that crowded. I played the piano and Mom sang. They had to set up extra chairs in the lobby so there would be places for everyone to sit. I couldn’t believe it. I have a theory, though. I think that because the economy is going to crap and everyone is tight on money and struggling, they felt the need to go to church and pray for “deliverance” from the way the economy is going. Whether this is true or not, or whether people directly thought about it or not I can’t say but it makes sense to me. When people are hitting hard times, they tend to go to church more than when they are doing well for themselves. In other words, they only need God when things go bad and tend to ignore Him when things go well, instead of thanking Him during the good times for all of the good things He has given them. Maybe its just me, but that seems a little hypocritical. You wouldn’t ignore someone who does nice things for you, like open the door for you, or help you carry groceries to your car. You say thank-you. So why wouldn’t you say thank-you to God for helping you out even in the good times?

I think I should give up drinking coffee. I’ve become a little addicted to having a cup in the morning and I know it isn’t good for me. It sucks all of the water out of me and leaves me feeling dehydrated and yet I can’t seem to stop. If I was a true addict, I keep telling myself, I would be drinking it down throughout the day. And yet, I can’t seem to resist having a cup in the morning. I managed yesterday because coffee was on my off-limits list for fasting but I couldn’t resist one this morning as I sit in the writing center pretending to work on my chemistry group poster presentation. I shouldn’t have had it but now I’m looking at the empty cup, contemplating a second cup. Its horrible for me. I should resist the temptation but the cup is so empty looking. Its just begging to be filled with warm brown liquid. No! I will go get a glass of water. That will hold me back and make me feel healthy again. But the coffee does smell so good. I almost bought a coffee-scented wax bar from the Scentsy party the other night but figured if I smelled it, I’d want to drink it. I must resist. I can justify one cup a day. No more than that.