Highway Hypnosis

Somewhere between exits 31 and 32 off the Mass Pike east I had an insight that I am accepting as a gift from the universe and a hiatus from the chaos that normally resides within the walls of my brain.

The thought was simple. “It doesn’t matter what age you are, only who you are.”

I worry, since Chris died, that I am too old now. I am too old for any man to find attractive. I am too old to be acting the way I am acting. I am too old to be upset that people seem to think I should be over the loss of my husband and the list goes on a little further than that. I tend to pressure myself to hurry up and...well, I don’t really know. I just pressure myself to do whatever it is I should be doing before...well, I don’t really know when. Do you see what I mean? I don’t have to worry about anything. I just have to be.

Something about the Mass Pike really gets the gears in my mind turning. I also realized the path by which I travel into patterns of deep despair upon returning home each evening. I am not just grieving. I feel grief begin to materialize and I panic because I do not want to grieve. Basically, I suffer the proverbial (is it proverbial?) double-whammy, the threat of grief immediately followed by a panic attack resulting from the threat of grief, which spawns more grief and a splash of anger and feelings that I cannot control the grief or the panic...or the anger for that matter. So by the time I am finished dancing the “complete-loss-of-control-tango” I have run the gammit of emotions intertwining grief, panic, anger and self-pity.

Good. Now I have something of substance to discuss with Clay tomorrow evening.

Before I say good-night, I will raise my bowl of frosted flakes, bananas and soy milk and make a toast to the fact that I am not grieving or panicking tonight.

Go me.