Settling into Summer

So, this is how it's been.

*Shortly before school ends, go to my doctor, confide that I am unbearably anxious about everything from getting to appointments on time to blow-drying my hair. Agree with her that I should increase my anxiety meds. Increase my anxiety meds. Wait for anxiety to subside.*

*School ends.*

*Pack up Eve for a week at my sister's. Drive to Toronto without incident. Hook up with my sister and her family. See the Wizard of Oz and a bunch of awesome happy gay people. Have a wonderful time.*

*Wake up Sunday and say goodbye to Eve and my sister's family before they drive back to London. Realize I've been in denial about how terrified I am about finding my way out of Toronto to get back home. Retrieve the van from the parking lot. Try to drive out of the parking lot. Think that I'm driving up through successful circular levels, because I was parked down on the lowest level. Realize I've passed the same guy drinking a slushie three times, because I've just been circling the bottom level over and over. Pull into a parking space and have hysterics. Find the ramp to get out of the parking lot. Ask the parking attendant how to get to the DVP. Realize it's dead easy and thank the parking attendant a little overly profusely. Get out on the DVP. Relax a little. Realize I didn't remind Eve to get her fuzzy (white lambskin) out of the bed and pack it and panic that she's now on her way to London without the thing without which she will not sleep. Call my sister, illegally, while driving, and have a shouting conversation wherein it is revealed that Fuzzy is safely packed in Eve's bag. Pull over on the side of the road and have hysterics. Drive home without further incident.*

*Try to decompress for a few days before my sister's family drives up here and leaves my niece and nephew for the week. Do an assignment. Read some books. Feel like there are bees under my skin.*

*Sister's family arrives. Visit with sister and brother-in-law for week-end. Sister and brother-in-law leave.*

*Take Eve and niece and nephew to Despicable Me 2, the Canadian War Museum, the park, Mont Cascade (which is, happily, the Ottawa park that HASN'T just been hit with a 20 million dollar fine for safety violations), Eve's softball game, Home Depot and Funhaven. Have a great time, but keep feeling wrong-footed and weird and desperately wanting a few hours to just be alone and quiet.*

*Get a few hours to be alone and quiet.*

*Read read sit sit think read sit*

*Realize that I'm inconsolably sad and lonely and feel like the air is screaming all around me when I'm alone. Feel disgruntled.*

*Go to a fortieth birthday party. Decide I won't drink because I'm emotionally fragile and have a bit of a cold.*

*Drink drink drink drink drink drink drink drink.*

*Wake up with vague memories of trying to sing a song I didn't know in Rock Band and wonder if I was singing actual English words. Check with everyone to make sure I wasn't the drunkest and most embarrassing person at the party. Love my friends for also being drunken idiots or lying well enough to make me believe that I was not the drunkest and most embarrassing person at the party.*

*Apologize to Eve for having an epic hangover and disappointing her hugely with my inappropriate and immature behaviour. Go to a baseball coach's cottage and have a nice afternoon with the baseball team under Eve's watchful eye because she doesn't believe that I would not drink alcohol at this moment in time if someone paid me.*

*Eve and her friend start drama camp. Hang out with the friend's mother, hang out with other friend with baby, read a little, cook a little.*

*Go to Angus's championship game which his team has to win to win Districts and advance to Provincials. Feel like I'm about to throw up and have a heart attack simultaneously, even though his team is undefeated and has mercied every other team in Districts including the one he's about to play.*

*Get to the game and relax infinitesimally when he pitches a perfect first three innings, but only really breathe when the game is won.*

*Drive through a severe thunderstorm with tornado watch in effect with Angus and Matt to watch Eve's performance on the final day of drama camp. Get wet. Watch performance. Clap and smile. Drive some more through torrential rain, thunder and lightning to visit Matt's relatives who we love at the cottage they've rented while they're visiting from Vancouver. Sit in a gazebo and drink pastel drinks and look at the lake. Feel marginally less anxious.*

*Drive home. Take Eve to her last softball game in the suffocating heat and humidity that the almost-tornado was supposed to demolish. Come home. Think that we have no camp or visitors or plans this week and Angus has baseball games that he might win and might lose, and feel like I might be starting to enjoy summer and have half a hope of getting this elephant off my chest.*

*Think I should blog.*

*Don't blog. Don't blog. Don't blog.*

*Blog.*