The Roller Coaster

My mother gave a beautiful speech at our wedding.  It was unprompted, unrehearsed, and unscripted...it was from her heart, and was full of love and gentle advice for the future.  She quoted one of her favorite movies, using a variation of this monologue:

"You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster... Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!... I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."
-- Parenthood, the movie.

My mother then lifted her glass and told us, "Here's to always choosing the roller coaster."

So, Mom?  Last week was all your fault.  (Kidding)

Her speech, and that quote, have been on my mind lately.

I could almost feel the physical fall last Monday.  I had clanked... clanked... clanked... clanked all the way to the crest in Andorra, feeling the excitement and thrill as I looked around...the world was beautiful, and we were in it...then felt the ultimate rush of the initial free fall letting the happiness wash over me...

Then, down I came.  Falling faster, faster, finding myself at the bottom again.  Where was the bottom?  Oh, that's easy.  It was bawling crying in the middle of my Spanish tutor session on Friday.  In the middle of a crowded cafe.  Because I couldn't think of the words in Spanish to describe my morning.  Yeah, I'd say that was my rock bottom last week. 

It was a wacky, crazy, emotional week. 

I can't explain the ups and downs here.  Well, OK, that's not entirely true.  Sometimes I can.  The trips to cool new places, and the temper tantrums on the subways -- those kinds of ups and downs are easy to spot.  But the low this week wasn't so easy to spot.  It was unexpected, unexplainable, and unwelcome.  Especially after such a great weekend together on vacation and looking ahead to Mia's birthday weekend at the end of the week...where was this coming from?

Perhaps it was lack of sleep as Mia tries to figure out exactly how sleeping-through-the-night works without a pacifier.  Clearly, sleep deprivation doesn't do great things to one's psyche. 

Or maybe it was the fact that sometimes I just simply don't want to be learning another language from scratch.  Of course, I want to speak Spanish.  Hell, while I'm at it, I want to speak Italian and German too.  I just don't necessarily want to learn to do these things.  I just want to do it.   I don't want to use the last neuron synapses I have left at the end of the day to try and figure out which of the four past tenses I should be using in Spanish (I want to be belly up on the sofa watching all four seasons of Felicity in their entirety, in case you were wondering). 

Or maybe it was because the mean checkout lady at Mercadona is still mean.  Still.  After 8 months.

Or maybe I was just lonely.

Or maybe there just wasn't an explanation.  Maybe it just was a bad week, and I felt like crying.  And I had to accept it, and push through... onward and upward to the next crest, however big or small.   

We made that decision.  We got on the roller coaster. 

Thankfully, Mia's birthday celebration on Sunday was exactly what I needed to lift the funk.  A big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs topped off with a piece of birthday cake will likely pull anyone out of a funk.  And watching a little someone prancing around in a blue sequined tutu didn't hurt either :)

And now, back to that Spanish homework.  Here's hoping for a better week.