On the Edges

I am living on the edges right now.

I have the corner on perfect parenting right now.  My kids are yelling in the other room.  I am hiding in the kitchen.  They’ll come get me if someone is bleeding, right?

I just can’t take the noise right now.  So I am living on the edges.

And I’m hoping it is just an off day.  But, often the intolerance of noise has been the harbinger for a terrible downturn mentally.  Here I am, living on the edges of terror.

Will this become the downturn I have been dreading?  The one I can’t return from?  The one to test the newest doc?

I dreamt last night of the wonderful psych doctor I used to have.  I am so scared of facing a real crisis without him.  I have landed at a doctor he trained with, but their practice philosophies are not the same.  And there is no relationship at this point.

I don’t want to test it.  So, I grasp the splinters radiating through my mind and  beg them to stay together, beg them to just be a bad day.  I plead with the unraveling to be temporary–just here for today.

I can’t go back where I was.  I can’t watch it all race through my fingers.  I can’t let go.

So I live on the edges, praying my girls can forgive me for not being fully present, fully available.

I’ll be okay, they’ll  be okay…right???