Misplaced Angst

Yesterday I had a nervous breakdown over a pothole.

To be more accurate, I had a nervous breakdown over 25 potholes.  Full on yelling, followed by huffing, and finishing up with a good old fashion cry face, all while my seven year old looked at me like I had officially lost my mind.  And as my eyes finally dried up and the red sploches left my cheeks, I realized I'm suffering from a severe case of misplaced angst.

Fears, worries, inability to predict the future.

When my life feels like it's spinning off kilter, at a speed that my heart can't handle, I fight for smaller, more manageable things to submit to me.

Our driveway is washing into a cow pasture and my pool needs to be completely relined.  We have a half finished window seat in the garage and when the heck am I supposed to plant my garden?  I see pictures of chickens and feel like that's just another 2014 dream that there just isn't time for.

It's how my heart is grieving all the unfairness that has recently dealt to my family.

When your four year old son is about to have his third open heart surgery and your brother's last brain scan had questionable spots and your Dad has an incurable disease it's just easier to obsess about home improvement projects then to face what you're actually feeling.

Maybe it's not the healthiest way to process, but I don't feel like I have the luxury of actually stopping long enough to figure out why all this sickness is assaulting the people that I love the most.  This In My Face realization that we all have to die.  And that none of us get to pick the day or time or way.  Well, it sucks and sometimes that makes you cry over holes in your driveway.

Today is a new day and I'm glad for a fresh perspective.

Andrew let me rattle off things that were freaking me out and, once I said them all out loud, I felt better. Calmer.

We have 15 days until we hand Gabe over for surgery and I'm sure yesterday won't be my last day of freaking out.  As confident as we are that Gabe will be completely fine, the idea of what he will go through it too much for any parent to swallow.  I hate it.  Really, really hate it.

So until this is all on the other side of us, I'll carry extra tissues and ask for a double dose of grace to carry me through.