My husband told me to go to the gym

Yesterday I went to the gym even though I had a raging headache. It was a gym ball class where we use those huge exercise balls (that I associate with pregnancy) to stretch and get toned. Before the class, I sat on the ball with my head in my hands, massaging my temples. It was better than looking up because my image in the mirror was not a pretty sight, and my waistline in the baggy tee shirt and high rise yoga pants looked like the suburban sprawl. You know when you just can’t keep all the real estate in the town centre?

The room was jam-packed with senior citizens. My head was the only one that was still fighting the grey with regular trips to the salon. And yet, it was my leg she patted when I was balancing on the ball, face down, wobbling on my stately (yet ineffective) biceps. I was the one she singled out for encouragement. “You’ll get better as you keep doing this.”

It was not just my headache that made it hard to get through that class. It was the weight of life. This business of reducing my anti-depressants is pretty intense. My husband made me promise that I would stop trying to go off if I thought I was going over the edge. Because he can’t tell (cue canned laughter). I must seem over the edge so often.

But he’s supportive and tries to squeeze the alarm out of his expression when he sees me crying and laughing at the same time. Since I have to fight to keep my head above water, our conversations are more real and I’m telling him exactly what I need in order to survive. It’s been … good. Good for us spiritually, good for our marriage, good all around.

I’m more concerned about the children. I don’t know how to make my face wake up into an expression. And it hurts when I hear one of them complain, “You always need to nap.” Or another one say in nervous encouragement, “Tomorrow we’ll be gone and you can sleep for two hours if you want.” Or to hear all three say, “Don’t worry, mom. Don’t worry!” as if I’m going to shatter in pieces.

I’m trying to tell them that I’m fine and they don’t have to carry my burdens. I can carry them and I have plenty of adult friends who will help me. They’re just kids and life is here for the embracing. I want to assure them I’m fine because I don’t want them to “catch” my depression. But I have trouble forming an expression and the words don’t make it past my ribcage.

Not very convincing that I’m winning this battle against depression, am I? But I am though. That was yesterday. That was the day where darkness seemed to steal my voice. Where it crept into my light like the creepy fungus mold we can’t get rid of. Yes, we’ll be insulating the house and installing an air filter system, but until then we’ve endured leaks and bubbling paint and cracked plaster. And mold.

It’s not the workers’ fault that the weather has brought more than its usual share of rain and windstorms.

We’re going to have to unmount all this furniture

and pack all these books and dishes so the workers can fix the walls.

Good grief, who has time for that? I can’t even get the ironing done or wash the floors.

So yesterday night, after a pretty debilitating day, I made tacos from scratch. The kitchen was a disaster and I had trouble finding space to cook. But I couldn’t think of anything else to make. The osso bucco I had initially planned on making needed 2 hours and I started too late. And the kids like tacos. So I started the refried beans (from scratch), and mixed the tortilla dough from the masa harina my friend brought back from Mexico.

When Matthieu walked in the kitchen, I shook my head and groaned. “Why do I do this to myself? Why do I decide to make tacos from scratch when everything is such a mess?”

He walked over. “That deserves a kiss. You say, ‘I’m so depressed!’ But then, ‘la la la – let me whip up some tacos!’ I’m so glad I married you.” He kissed me. “Don’t worry about the mess. I’ll clean the kitchen.”

Me – touched to the core – “That sounds an awful lot like grace,” I said.

Later, when Matthieu was elbow-deep in suds, and I had gotten the children started on their showers, I walked past this room on my way upstairs –

and was covered in defeat before I reached the kitchen.

“Honey,” I said. “I need your wisdom because I can’t figure out what to do and I’m overwhelmed. The house is so messy. And the floor is disgusting. Look at it! I don’t think I’ll be able to go grocery shopping and clean the floors and go to the gym tomorrow. What do you think I should do. Do you think I should skip the gym so I can clean the floors?”

His response was firm. “No. I think you should go to the gym because it does you so much good. You’re happy afterwards, and who cares about the floors! They can wait. I can live with the mess.”

Me – touched to the core again – “That sounds like grace too.”

So this morning, I woke up and read a book on prayer. Then I prayed. More specifically, I prayed that I would be able to clean my floors even though I was going to the gym and had to get groceries.

Then I went to the gym and was happy. No headache, no mask of despair. I went grocery shopping, and while I was there, stumbled on an ecological almond-scented floor cleaning product that I love but haven’t been able to find in three years. I bought two, came home, and somehow still found time and energy to clean.

And to wash the floors.

I half-joked that I was cleaning my floors out of obedience to Christ.

I found strength and encouragement in the fact that my husband cared more about my well-being than (what I considered to be) my duty, and sent me to the gym. I found strength and encouragement in finding that almond-scented cleaning product – after searching for it for three years – on the day I prayed to have strength to clean the floors. All this was grace. Grace in abundance.

Outdoors the birds are heralding spring, and the air smells like freshly turned earth. The workers are joking and posing and covering our roof with red clay tiles.

And the unbearable sweetness of life … well that feels like grace too.

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