Battle Hymns of a Hot Mess Mom

The last two nights I have woken up to panic attacks. I’ve always had them but haven’t since I was diagnosed with cancer and for some reason the last two nights I have woken up afraid. I can usually coax myself out of it in a few minutes and shake it off but the feeling afterwards the sadness and depression washes over me. J instinctively pulls me to him and tells me “I’m here, you’re safe.” And while that’s not enough to snap me out of it, the warmth of his body helps lull me back to sleep. The next day however I feel tired and have less energy.

We are taking a break from the swim meet this weekend. I don’t have Michael Phelps children – they swim for the social aspect but as a sport I don’t know if they actually like it. And well it’s hot here so swimming beats the heat a bit. We’re headed to the ocean today. I haven’t been back in a while, and they say 10 minutes looking at the water soothes your mind and body. We’ll have our staple blue pop up tent and watch the kids play in the water.

It’s a perfect semi-cloudy day at the beach. It’s 11:00am so the marine layer still has time to burn off but for now it’s simply perfect. I can actually sit on the beach (with my pop up tent of course). I’m trying to settle from the panic attack last night and still feel rather uneasy. I’m waiting for the sound of the waves to bring me back to center, people talking, kids laughing/ squealing and the wind. My panic attacks have always been about dying, not existing anymore…ever since I was young. The root of my panics have never been found but I have better coping mechanisms now as an adult. They used to be crippling to where I would need more than an hour to snap out of or sometimes one panic attack would roll into another. The triggers were random, my most vivid one was watching a National Geographic’s program on the Earth and it’s eventual demise and I lost it. Another one was doing math and realizing I wouldn’t live past 2090. It would throw me into a heart racing, air gulping craze…I would repeat over and over “I’m never going to die. It’s okay. It’s okay” until the panic passed. These days I breathe though it and think to myself “It’s okay, it’s natural and normal.” But the fear doesn’t fully ever subside.

It stayed overcast the entire day until we were ready to leave at 3:30pm. Perfectly warm and cloudy. Kids had an absolute blast. I decided that staying in the palace while the children swam wasn’t a great use of family time. Now if they children truly wanted to compete – It’d be there for it, but they seemingly do it for the social part at least it seems this way. Maybe it’s my selfishness and I’m all wrong for this. I didn’t get the parenting manual. I could be screwing this all up. I just want to watch them laugh and wave at me when they are having a blast. I’m a spectacular to both so maybe I’m all wrong about this.

And…I screwed up. Cause cloudy overcast doesn’t mean you can’t get sunburned. Oops. I clearly wasn’t careful. My skin is hot to the touch and stingy. Poor choices not to put sunblock on