The Bottle Shatters

Thursday some more.  4:30 pm.

My children (all in their twenties - but of course they are still my children) really do love me.

How do I know this?  Because when they saw that I was taking an emotional nose-dive, but didn't realize it, they stepped in.  They insisted I go to the doctor.  And they've been keeping a close eye on me ever since.  I have wonderful children.

I wasn't exactly appreciative at first.  Actually, I was freaked out.  And angry.   I splattered raw emotion all over my poor daughter who had been appointed by the others (who live far away) to come and gently talk to me.  She was wonderful.  I wasn't.  Quite the opposite.  And I am sorry.

In the four or five days until I could get a doctor's appointment, I cried.  Slept.  Wept.  Slept.  Wailed.  Slept.  Scribbled down my feelings.  Slept.  Scribbled More.  Slept.  My poor husband and son, who live with me, had to tiptoe around me.  I am sorry, again.

What poured out of my pen?  Bottled up fears.  Bottled up sorrows.  Bottled up exhaustion.  Bottled up memories. 

I knew I was tired.  I knew I was getting forgetful - which I had put down to being tired, because the only other reason I could think of was too terrifying for me to contemplate. 

I also knew that while sometimes I did over-react to relatively small things, overall I was pretty non-reactive.  I told myself (at least I hoped) that I was actually getting more mature, less emotional, as I aged. And perhaps getting mature spiritually, too: that maybe I was finally learning to trust Father.  So that things didn't get me as excited as before.  (But what I didn't notice was that it was mainly my cheerful nature that was disappearing).  Overall, I was actually pretty pleased with myself.

But cracks were forming.

And when my daughters expressed their concern, the bottle I'd been carefully, secretly, subconsciously pouring things into for a long time, pretty much shattered.