Word of the day: Lassitude?

Our family loves words. At present our computer's screen saver is "Word of the Day" which consists of a number of words, usually fairly unusual words, floating across the screen, and all the boys love it. Every now and then one of the words of the day are defined on screen. It's led to some very interesting conversations. My eldest was almost late for school today because he paused to see what the next word's definition would be! David and I have played Scrabble games continuously for most of our marriage (made easier these days by electronic versions).

And of course I'm a writer, so I like to say what I mean. I'm feeling a little out of sorts today. It's hard to describe, but like I'm lacking my usual mental vigour. I went looking for an unusual word to use, how about: 

Lassitude

weariness of body or mind from strain, oppressive climate, etc.; lack of energy; listlessness; languor.

The word doesn't completely cut it, though. It is also a post-excitement let down: we had such a full and exciting day on Saturday. 

The five Marshalls watching wrestling on Saturday.

Then yesterday for me was also full: a social meeting over coffee for the magazine (ah, the things I do for "work"), followed by a stimulating prayer meeting, and a loong bring-and-share lunch with some other parents from 9th grade. The evening was defined by the usual struggles over homework and instrument practise, but overshadowing all of that was a huge blow-up between two of our sons at dinner time, that took some time to recover from (it had a really good resolution, though).

I remember feeling like this last year (I went back and read this post: Discombobulated). At least I haven't yet signed any emails "Donald", or at least I don't think I have... 

But as I was back there, I found this post, a favourite of mine:

Still recovering from wrestling, I read a blog post by another mum also struggling with the exhaustion that comes from watching your kids compete in sports. Great post, but even better was this comment that came afterwards, I really relate, to this, even though we don't yet have a high school wrestler who has such long meets:

I just read your post after a very long day in a high school gym with a bunch of sweaty, stinky boys. My son was wrestling and that is not for the faint of heart. Every Saturday from mid Dec until 3rd week in Feb is spent at an all day tournament. They start at 8 am and go until 7 pm or later! We are exhausted at the end of the day. Wrestling is so INTENSE! In fact, our school t-shirts say “my son is killing me 6 minutes at a time.” That is so true. They wrestle with all their heart and effort for 6 minutes and I swear that I lose a few years every weekend. On a Saturday, my son may wrestle up to 5 times in the day and it’s crazy! But I wouldn’t miss a match for anything. He is amazing to watch and when the hard work pays off, what a great feeling.

This totally resonates with me!

Well now I've got all those words out of my system, I'd better knuckle down and get back to the other things I'm supposed to be doing today!