The Bitch is Back

PTSD said hello this morning.  She crept out of my psyche, catching me unawares.  I was walking through the living room, catching a glimpse of the television, when she found something to set her off.  She's been dormant for a while, but I've felt her revving her engines all week long.

There have been too many shootings recently, I moaned to Little Cuter over the phone.  I don't like to interrupt her work day, but TBG was at the gym and Big Cuter doesn't get the whole PTSD thing the way those of us who were there at the beginning seem to find it.  There are some good things that came out of this whole experience, and shielding my son fro the horror is one of them.

But today, I needed someone who would listen and understand.  Little Cuter wins the award for that.  She was the only one I could think of who would understand that Tom Brady getting off on all counts of deception and impropriety could be a trigger for me.

"We hold ourselves to high standards, Mama.  It's right and appropriate that we should hold others to those same standards, and totally understandable when we lose it because they don't do what we know they should do."

It's the NFL and Tom Brady and the Patriots and the "Independent Review" and it's none of them.

It's the world tilting on its axis, leaving me askew.

It has nothing to do with football and everything to do with what's wrong with the world.

The bitch, because that is exactly what she is, grabs at my heart, tears at my throat, and leaves me between wailing and screeching.  My darling daughter listened, agreed, commiserated, and shared her husband's golden pearls of wisdom when she, too, reeling from chaos at work and on the news, excused herself from the dinner-for-FlapJilly and put herself in time out until she was recovered enough to be around others.

"You don't have to solve everyone's problems.  You are right to want to do so, because you know you could fix it if they would just listen to you.  But they are not listening.  They won't listen,  And so, all you are doing is making yourself anxious and upset and you're still not solving anything.  It's okay to step away every now and then."

She picked a good one, didn't she, denizens?

And so, I have spent the day trying not to solve the problems of the world.  I stopped worrying about why Donald Trump appeals to so many of my fellow citizens.  I stopped worrying if Everytown for Gun Safety's Whatever It Takes day of action was just another means of banging my head against a stone wall.  I left notions of mental health and parental irresponsibility and murders on live tv at home, and I took myself to the Happy Ladies Club's game day.

We played Tripoley and ate Mexican food and we giggled and told stories and made plans for the future.  I solved no one's problems.  I didn't think about them at all.

It felt great.

When I left, it was raining on my newly washed car.  The bitch began to rear her ugly head, but I shoved her back in the box.  For now, for today, for this afternoon, I am in control.