Today I woke up feeling overwhelmed. It usually follows a night of dreams fraught with all the stuff I haven’t done or finished or even started yet. I rarely remember such dreams other than a tangle of dark shadows and frustrated emotions. I don’t really want to remember the specifics. It’s enough to wake up feeling overwhelmed.
Seeing as no one else is awake, I jump in to tackle some of my “undones,” hoping to resolve the mess of anxiety roiling in my gut. As I start working on a client’s blog article, my son trails in, tears already on his cheeks because he was so tired last night he and his dad didn’t play the game he’d 
wanted to play. My first reaction is to snarl in frustration: I’m not going to get anything done at this rate. But I shove that nasty part away from me, pull him to me so he’s snuggled up against my side (at 11, I wonder how much longer he’ll be willing to lean on me like this) and we talk about why he woke up ready to doom the day.
Genetics? Environment, growing up in a house where Mom wakes up overwhelmed and, in the past, didn’t handle it so well? It doesn’t matter. What matters is I focus on the weight of him, the sound of his breathing, his constant 11-year old fidgeting.He gets into the open notes on the laptop in my lap and we talk DNA testing methods. Apparently comforted, he wanders off to find his dad and see if some of their aborted plans from last night can be resurrected this morning.
Before I can dive back into my work, my daughter flies in on a few thousand sentences and half of a song. The definition of a morning person, she rarely wakes up on a tide of anxiety or distraught emotions. Those come later in the day, usually when she stops moving long enough to think about all the things she wants, longs for, dreams of, can’t have. But in the morning…she wakes up as if the day started awhile
ago and the rest of us are slow to catch-up.
She wants to go to a park. She wants breakfast. She wants to watch TV. Did I notice the sun is out? She wants to know the plan for the day. She doesn’t want to do anything. She wants to play with the dogs. Can she eat the last donut in the box or will her brother get mad?
I stare at my notes, the blank page for my article. I think about the garden that needs weeding, the bookshelves that need moving, the family room that I’ve started priming for paint, the grocery shopping I need to do, the ribs I need to get cooking, the 100 pages of my novel I need to print so I can ready the package for Interested Agent #3….
My heart beats faster and my chest constricts. It’s not even nine a.m.
My daughter is whirling around the house, dashing from her room to the kitchen, chasing the dogs, singing a song…the sun is shining. She is full of life and zest and…I breathe, focus on the sound of her voice, the memory of my son leaning into my side.
Life could end tomorrow. Would it be any better a life if all my “jobs” were closed out, completed?
I shut my laptop and breathe.
SavageTimes 