...lightning...thunder...y'know I'm not that strong

I’m having what can only be described as panic attacks. At least, I’m feeling panic-ky. For no reason and all reasons. Simultaneous and altogether and everandeveramen.

I think it’s because The Storm of Storms hit last night/early morning, nearly tossing me out of bed with its house-shaking and sky-lighting and gusts and bursts of hard rain against the window over my head and the windows my feet point to when I toss and turn.

I jumped bolt upright. Sat there for a minute.

Turned my back to the north and snuggled down in the covers. Mister Storm shook me again like my brain was a-fire, and this time I jumped up and covered my nakedness with clothes, for the Running-of-the-Mom to one of the kids’ bedrooms when they inevitably woke up screaming from the noise, oh the noise, noise, noise, noise.

They never woke up. Which is not like them.

I woke up. Constantly and consistently. Which is totally like me.

But worse. Much, much worse.

I’m all out of sorts.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror at 5 a.m. and glowered at myself. Just because. Then I had A Bad Thought, which got my head and my belly in a spin. Then the Panic. It hasn’t stopped. I’ve been obsessing ever since about things in and out of my control. In. Out. Hell....

My head hurts.

I feel the need to jump out of my own skin, and into a tighter one.
Maybe it’s the need to jump out of this liquid feeling of open air, and back into the enveloping, sweaty denseness of the down quilt on my bed.
Perhaps it’s dissatisfaction disguising itself in Groucho-glasses-and-moustache as panic and sleep deprivation. When maybe I need to rethink What I Want To Be When I Grow Up.

The storm outside has passed.
Out of the sky, and right into my head.