Tests of Sanity and Trains of Thought

This morning has been a true test of sanity. Amy had to leave early for a friend's house early before Bible Study and Xander and I have been listening for Maia cry almost non-stop for the last 90 minutes. No reason other than a generally ill tempered disposition. I finally put her back to bed for a little "Maia time" which may lead to an early nap. Sometimes she just needs to be removed from the stimulus of the rest of the house to get a grip. Unfortunately, she's driven my mood straight into the crapper on a day that is often a challenge of my mood to begin with. I'm hoping there's enough time before I go to work to get myself back on track, otherwise nine hours will feel like nine days.

I have a tendency to struggle with my mood at this time of year anyway. Cabin fever, cold temps and an approach to winter that borders on hibernation all make keeping my mood up a challenge. I thought I was doing a little better as evidenced by what happened when my iPod decided to reset on Friday a few hours before work. Normally, this would have sent me in a downward spiral that would have brought those cartoon angry clouds over my head for days, but it didn't really phase me much. Never mind the fact that I was now left with the prospect of having to reload over 3600 songs back on the iPod, most of which I would need to reload from the CD's as I opted to not store the 15 GB or so of music on my hard drive. This test of sanity was passed with flying colors which is what makes my reaction to this morning's test all that much more frustrating.

I've had several times over the last week where I've found myself thinking about things that I normally would have written about, but I can't seem to ride the trains long enough to have concrete lines of thinking or even nuggets that I could return to for later exploration. I've thought about spiritual life as journey, salvation theology, predestination vs. free will and other topics that are of little practical use, but are good stretching exercises. Unfortunately, I keep having to pull away from the thoughts to do other things and by the time I'm ready to return, the train is a thousand miles away and all I'm left with is the memory of their sound on the tracks.

It's been frustrating because I find myself really wanting to write and really wanting to have something to say, but I'm left with having to document thoughts that are seldom connected other than by their residence in my mind.