When the Bough Breaks...

When I was little, I'd have these moments where I'd get really upset and angry at the same time and feel like crap. I didn't know if I wanted to cry or scream. I couldn't decide if I wanted to wreck my bike by riding straight into the closed garage door and jumping off at the last minute or if it would feel better to just pull a few overripe tomatoes off the plants at the back of the garage and squeeze them as hard as I could while yelling. Most of the time, I'd just climb up into the tree in the front yard and sit among the leaves and see if I needed to cry about it or think about it or both. I'd sit there and try to figure out exactly where it was all coming from and then, more importantly, exactly what I was going to do about it. If, that is, there was something I could do about it.

Eventually, I'd get it figured out and come down. A little tear-streaked, perhaps. A little tired, perhaps. Once in a while hungry and thirsty, both for food and companionship. Sometimes, I would be moody and quiet; sometimes, lighter and happier than I'd been in days, as if I'd left whatever burdened me up among the branches.

I find myself metaphorically up that tree these days. So much to think about, so many cares and woes. And there are the small things, too, that pester and poke: relentless rain, slow Spring, lost sleep, disengaged students, toxic people, quarreling kids, and my own guilt that these petty provocations can get to me in the face of other people's greater challenges. And the weary feeling that I just might 'run out' before the school year does.

So I'm up here amongst the branches, sorting it all out as best I can. I gotta tell ya, it was easier when I was eight. (But at least the latest polls are helping.*) I'll keep remembering that maybe part of it will resolve itself on June 7th when school is out; perhaps things will also look better when I get a bit more sleep. Let's hope so. In the meantime, stuff looks a little bleak...from way up here.

*Harris Poll , Newsweek Poll, AP-Ipsos Poll, USA Today Poll <------He's going LOWER!!!!!!