Sometimes, I am so irritable that it’s a miracle I don’t injure someone. I love activity and having kids around and I want our house to be a fun place for everyone to congregate. Sometimes, though, it is torture. Some days, the sound of a Connect-4 checker hitting the kitchen table may as well be a fog horn. Normal kid voices seem obscenely loud. A television set in another room grates on my nerves so much that I cannot stand it. I want to scream. Run away. Make them run away. Anything to give me silence. Yet silence is torture too. It’s maddening. 

What does one do in this situation? I do the only thing I know to do. CARRY ON. Pray for some help. Try to remember that this is my one and only life. (That is not comforting sometimes at all. Damn, if this is my one and only life, it feels like it’s going to be very long and annoying.) Thank Goodness for my hot tub and wine, lovely wine. It may well be the only sanity-saver that exists. 

Perhaps medication is my answer, although I don’t think it is a good one. I don’t want to medicate my way through this – I want to feel and experience every miserable (and happy) moment. I do not have a single problem with anti-depression or anti-anxiety medication. I’ve used them, I’ve loved them, I think they are very useful. But I don’t think I’m depressed or over-the-top-anxious. I think I’m grieving and I need to let myself. Not exactly loving this particular section of the grief tunnel, but it’s my tunnel to travel, so I better keep on keeping on. I hate you, grief. I think you suck.