It continues.  It grows worse, even.  Or maybe that’s just because I’m looking for it now.  I’m finding little bits of evidence scattered around, like little Lego pieces in the rug that find your bare feet when you are busy trying to go about your business.  My growing hunger, my growing idleness, my growing lack of motivation to do much of ANYTHING, my growing inability to deal with any sort of chaos.

Of course, life with small children is pretty much nothing BUT chaos.

It starts in with a sense of panic.  It doesn’t take much to trigger it; a slow loading laptop, a child crying in the background, another child asking constant questions, noise from the television, a deadline to get something done.  It all amounts to feeling as though the walls are closing on you and FAST.  And it gets worse and worse and worse.  Before you know it, you blow your stack.  Someone gets yelled at.  Something snaps.

If I’m lucky, after the smoke clears and everyone and everything has settled back down, I feel blank.  An almost unwilling calm.  A deadpan expression, a numbness.  The limit has been reached and Marilyn has checked out for a while.  Please leave a message and she’ll get back to you.

I almost wish I could feel that way all the time.  Because the panic and anxiety are so much WORSE.

For now, the numbness remains.  I am lucky.  For now.