Losing it...

I completely lost it today.

What is 'it', you might ask? 

Self-control.  Composure.  Reason.  Rational thought.  Take your pick... I lost all of them as suddenly as if a bomb had gone off inside me, obliterating all defenses.  No warning, no prolonged prelude of stress or unhappiness hinting at the possibility of a breakdown.  Nothing at all to presage what was about to happen.

The day started off as any other workday does.  I got up at the usual time, got ready for the day, stopped at Starbucks for my usual order of coffee, drove to work, got to the office about five minutes ahead of schedule... So far so good, except that I kept feeling like I wasn't where I was supposed to be.  Nothing specific, just a vague feeling of not wanting to be there and not being up to working.

And then it happened... Barely a half hour after I got to work, in the middle of reading an email, I just crashed.  My hands started to sweat and felt freezing at the same time.  My jaws clenched so hard that I could hear the echo of the teeth grinding in my ears.  I took a deep breath and stopped breathing altogether.  When the breath did come out in a whoosh, I knew I had to get out of there.  It wasn't a panic attack... For lack of a better description, it was an attack of rage.  Not at anyone in particular, just an explosion of emotions so strong that I couldn't even identify the roiling mix, let alone control and tamp it back down.

Minutes later I was in the car and then I drove.  I drove while music pounded through the speakers and drowned out my screams.  I was crying and hyperventilating and at one point just screaming until I was hoarse.  I drove for a couple of hours, staying off the highways at first and then getting on I-5 and heading North.  Each time the tears slowed down and I thought I was done, a fresh burst of rawness would come and it would start all over again. 

I must have gotten off the highway and turned back South because at some point I began to see familiar landmarks again and eventually directed my path home.  By the time I got to the house, my throat was raw but there were no more tears or rage left; all I felt was empty.  I got inside, grabbed a blanket, fell on the couch and fell asleep.  By the time I woke up, it was a little past noon and just like that, it was all over. 

Uncertainty

Uncertainty comes in many varieties and degrees.  There's everything from the grand "I don't know when I'm going to die" uncertainty to the miniature "I'm not sure what I'll do this afternoon" and everything in-between.

The big uncertainties are a normal part of life and I have (almost) come to accept that, or at least I am as accepting of their existence as I am of the idea that something/anything is out of my control.  But it's the little uncertainties that I'm constantly grappling and fighting with.

For example, this morning I'm free, but I won't be free the entire morning, I'm waiting for a call that will tell me that it's time to resume normal life with all its attendant responsibilities and much as I want to enjoy the time I have left, I absolutely cannot do that because I don't know when the call will come.  It could have come by now, it could come as I'm in the middle of this sentence, or it could come an hour and a half from now.  The uncertainty of the boundary of my block of freedom is making it impossible for me to enjoy it.

I function best when my life is boxed into neat sections with well-defined edges.  The "go with the flow" attitude stresses me out to no end.  I can't function without structure, whether imposed by me or someone else.  Of course, being the self-avowed control freak that I am, I prefer to impose the structure myself, but that's not actually a requirement.  I can function within a structure imposed by someone else, although I make no promises not to try and alter it.

I try to control just about every aspect of my life on a daily basis so it would figure that I'll try to control time along with everything else.  Sometimes that means knowing exactly what happens in every ten minute block of an hour, such as the morning routine from wake-up until I'm out the door and heading to work.  Sometimes it's as fluid as setting boundaries in chunks of a few hours, but it's rarely longer stretches than two to three hours.  Anything beyond that begins to feel too random and unstructured.

Losing track of time is the same as losing control.  On the rare occasions when I do lose track of time, such as an unexpected nap, return to reality is inevitably accompanied by a strong panic attack.  I hate napping and if I do give in to the seductive urge, I always set an alarm clock because waking up with heart palpitations, shaking and sweating in a sudden burst of panic is just not worth it.

And as I'm writing this I am remembering that there is one exception to the rule of supervising passage of time.  The exception is playing with J.  When we play, regardless of whether I'm able to get into headspace or not, time stops.  I was going to write that I don't know why it happens, but actually I do know exactly why it happens.  I have severe trust issues, but that's a topic for a whole other post, however, those trust issues are at the core of my need to control everything in my surroundings, including time.  When J and I play, however, my trust in Him is so overwhelming that I am able to let go not just of my need to control my physical surroundings, but of my need to control my mental state of being, including control of time.  And once I let go, time loses all meaning.  Not only do I not want to control it, I don't need to control it.  Once the scene is over though, all bets are off and before I know it, my fingers are itching to pick up the puppet strings I'm used to moving and directing.

So it is that the uncertain end to my current free block of time is worse than getting the call telling me that it's over.  That's certainty and while I may not like the message it carries, there's comforting safety in knowing where the edges are.