Another Day

How bizarre it is that things can shift so dramatically from day to day. Yesterday I was all full of peace and warm fuzzies where the world in general was concerned. This morning I woke up to a panic attack. Who the hell wakes up having a panic attack?
I have no idea why I’m so out of sorts this morning. I’m eating a bowl of granola cluster thingies (some Grape Nuts rip-off), hoping that if I toss something into that pit in my stomach, it wouldn’t be the first time a bowl of food solved a mini-crisis, would it? I’m loading up different programs and am about to get started combing through the inventory at my brother’s stores to check for broken links, missing images and information that needs to be corrected. I wondered if I’m feeling kind of overwhelmed there. My brother seems to assume sometimes that I’m familiar with some of these systems when I’m not, and while I’m a quick study and can get up to speed quickly, it’s still a little intimidating. But is that it? I don’t think so. I’ve enjoyed doing this stuff so far, even if I haven’t made a whole lot of progress.
Another thing I’ve wondered about is the band I’m going to jam with Sunday. Could I be worried about doing well there? I doubt it. For one thing, even if I suck I know I’ll have a good time and I’ll get to meet some other musicians. When I went to the post office yesterday, I passed a house near there where I heard a drummer banging away on his kit. That gave me warm fuzzies and made me think about the old days, not to mention the fact that I’m looking forward to Sunday. So that couldn’t be it.
The only thing I really think about that might have triggered a panic attack is that it’s a week before Christmas. We have diddly in the way of money to buy presents with, and worst of all I have to figure out a way to get up to North Carolina to see Mama. We’d hoped that things would be better by Christmas, but I haven’t gotten up to speed yet working with my brother, so there’s been no money coming in from that. Our eBay stores haven’t picked up like we’d hoped. I guess times are really just that hard right now, that everyone is holding back on their spending. So Victoria keeps telling me that I have to figure out what I’m going to do about going to North Carolina, and I just keep wondering how we can afford for me to do anything.
We’d hoped that we could get Mama to come down here for a week or so for Christmas. But Mama’s friend is dying, and she understandably doesn’t want to be in Florida if something happens to her. And even after her friend is gone, there’s a long list of people up there in Kings Mountain who will do anything they can to keep Mama from coming down here. People who care only about their own selfish needs, and could care less that Mama and I haven’t seen one another since May. It’s all well and good for me to come up there, but if you bring up the subject of Mama coming down here, the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins. Which is to be expected, really, since these people have long lists of chores that they expect Mama to do for them. And Mama, being Mama, gladly does whatever she can for whoever needs or wants anything.
I don’t know if Mama not coming down here has anything to do with it, or us trying to figure out how to get me up there. Either way, Christmas is going to suck for me this year. I’ll either spend it here in Florida, tearing my heart out because I didn’t go to see Mama, or I’ll spend it in North Carolina, tearing my heart out because I’m not with Victoria and the family down here. It’s a no-win, either way you look at it. But that just is. That’s just me deciding between two evils. I don’t think it’d induce a panic attack.
Whatever’s going on today, I don’t much feel like doing anything at all. I just want to go back to bed. I was happy and content when I went to bed last night. Maybe if I went back to sleep I could roll back whatever switches got flipped in my sleep. Somehow I feel like whatever these strange feelings are, they could all be solved by a bowl of ravioli and a nap.