Why the Dog Food Depressed Me

Yesterday I was depressed.  Actually, I'm still depressed today, but yesterday, I was depressed, in part, due to the dog food.

I couldn't quite understand why.  Yes, it is a hassle to have to open a 30-pound sack of dog food in my trunk, scoop it into plastic dishes, and carry it inside that way.  It is also a hassle to then wash all the plastic dishes I used to carry the dog food.  But many things in life are a hassle.  If you get depressed every time you must deal with a hassle, well, you are going to be depressed a lot.  I think I do a pretty good job of not sweating the small stuff, at least most of the time.

I think I was a little depressed because I had no one to help me, and that makes me feel lonely and sad.  Of course, I probably could have asked a neighbor for help, but I don't like to ask for help.  I feel like I should be able to do things myself.  I feel like it's my responsibility and I shouldn't bother other people.

I think the biggest thing about the dog food that depressed me was the realization that there was a time in my life when lifting 30 pounds would have been like nothing to me.  I used to be a certified nursing assistant.  When I worked in a nursing home, we were not supposed to lift anyone weighing more than 60 pounds by ourselves.  Since most nursing home residents weigh more than 60 pounds, that meant we were supposed to get another CNA to help us.  Since we were chronically understaffed, though, we frequently lifted residents alone that weighed more than 60  pounds.

And for a while, I did private duty care for a teenage boy with multiple disabilities.  He weighed about 70 pounds, and in a day, I would lift him in and out of his wheelchair at least a dozen times.  I would lift him into the bathtub, then carry him from the bath to the bed to dress him, lift him back into his chair, lift him out of the chair and place him on the living room floor to do his range of motion exercises, then pick him up off the floor to put him back in his chair, etc.  And it was easy.  Even picking him up off the floor was easy.

Today I could not bend over to pick up a package off the floor when Fed Ex left it outside my front door.  The package contained a two-pound tub of protein powder, three single-serving samples of protein powder (I guess a couple ounces each), and a small bottle of vitamins.  Altogether, it might have weighed three pounds.  I could not bend over to pick it up.  I had to kick it across my door sill, across my foyer, across my living room, until it came to rest beside my couch, so I could sit on the couch and then pick it up.

I used to pick up a 70-pound teenager off the ground with no trouble at all.

I find that depressing.  It's depressing that I can't do things that I used to do so easily.  It's depressing that it's so difficult now to do things that should be so simple.