And just like that, you have a dark cloud hanging over your head. You wake up, a whole new day, and you can feel it sitting on your shoulders, waiting for you to make your next move. Sometimes it can come out of nowhere. It can sit there and make itself comfortable for seconds, minutes, hours and sometimes, your head is such a cosy place to snuggle up in, it ends up staying there and niggling away for months and years on end. I feel like we should give it a name; especially when, having a bad day or a bad moment seems like a constant, you begin to feel a normality forming behind it. Normalities have names. I’m going to call mine… Jim. Silly name for a silly moment that will eventually move on. It may have a passing stop again, where it lingers around for a few days, grabs a coffee and does a little shopping, but eventually Jim will move on again. He’s a local visitor for me. More often a fleeting visit over a long stay, but all in all, he’s not foreign to me. On days when he visits, other things get postponed. Maybe other friends don’t get seen or jobs fail to get done, maybe certain emotions fail to be felt or tiredness takes over. Either way, when Jim comes to visit, it is never a good one. His short stays are the best ones. He goes as quickly as he shows up and its easier to carry on with your day. One thing is for definite though, Jim will always be around. Unfortunately, he is a part of my life and every single one of us has a Jim.
Dealing with a bad day or a bad moment can be difficult. It can take up energy that you really feel you need and make you feel rubbish emotions over the smallest of things. For me, Jim stops me from writing, hence the lack of posts. He stops me feeling motivated and thus productive. From each moment that he lingers on, my own motivation, power and stability, gets stretched out into tiny livewires, waiting to be knitted back together bit by bit. I love music, reading and anything creative, but I find it often lacks on those visiting days.
There are ways of coping with Jim. Like a chore that needs to get done, there are always ways of making it ease up. For me, talking to someone and telling them about Jim is the best thing for me. Having that rant, maybe even a cry, a big cuddle from a friend, boyfriend/girlfriend or family. The right song can suddenly lift Jim away from his short visit. Moving your concentration to something else is a good device in helping you to feel a little lighter. Sometimes though, on those long visits, you just have to accept that he isn’t going anywhere. Tell someone. Make people aware of his presence and then let it happen. Fighting his stay only prolongs the visit. Allows him to build a home rather than just staying in a B&B.
Bad days are just life’s way of getting you to sit back and look at what is making you unhappy. Telling you to stop so you can make a change. A relationship? Financial? Security? Sometimes there isn’t even an answer. But on those days when Jim comes to visit, just know, its never forever.
From You the Reader