A Sense of Panic

You know the feeling, your neck is tight and there is a knot at the back of it. You have this intense energy surging up through your body and it is stopping and knotting up in the center of your chest. Your hands are tight and the faster you move the clumsier you become. One last symptom…you go nowhere fast. The faster you try to go the more phone calls you get or the more Sunday drivers that cut in front of you. All you feel like doing is screaming, but at this point it would take way too much time and energy. That is how it feels around here as I try to get my kids ready to hit the road tomorrow. This is supposed to be fun, but the excitement part has not hit yet, first we have to finish homework, finish packing, finish buying what is needed for the trip and pray.

Pray for calm, pray for safety, pray they have fun and pray that God covers, holds and loves my children when they step away from me tomorrow. With them both going in different directions with different people it adds to the sense of stress. I am comfortable and confident in the people that will be with my children, I am just struggling with the maternal instinct of worry. I have a sense of panic that I will not send them off with everything they need, or that they have too much on their plates and need rest and love and, well…me! What if this rush, rush, hurry, hurry is just a really bad idea and I should be keeping them home and calm.

The truth is both the girls will have a fabulous time learning to be on their own. No Mom, no Dad, no sibling, just themselves and their judgment and resources to draw on. Of course they will have our money to help them too. Over all the sense of panic is temporary and will last only as long as it takes to get Avery off in the morning and Aly dropped off at our church in the evening, than it will be time for Mark and me to take some time to get to know each other again. That is worth rushing around getting the girls ready to go. I just hope this knot in my neck unties, it is very uncomfortable!