Calgon, Take Me......Anywhere!

I've had it up to here! Isn't that how the saying goes? When the frustration level rises to more than can be taken, and you smack the edge of your hand against some region of your head (or higher) and start screaming? That's when everyone knows to back off and leave you in peace for a while until you can get things on an even keel again.

This is the time of year where I'm not sure if things will ever be even again. I'm inundated with pressures from from every aspect of my life and the end of the tunnel seems so very far away. The kids are being tested out the wazoo at school, so I can't even manage to get through a single uninterrupted week, let alone finish a unit on time. We should be halfway through the trial in To Kill a Mockingbird and I can't even get Scout off of Miss Maudie's front porch. The problem is, testing won't be over until May 15 and by that time we're a week from the end of school. I guess Odysseus will have to keep sailing because we can't get him home this year. (Let's not even mention the poetry unit I spent so much time creating.)

Then there is the family unit. The Princess is graduating this year. She is stressed. She is letting everyone know it. We still have senior band concert, senior chorus concert, senior prom, senior prom dinner (at our house), senior day at school and at church, tennis banquet, band banquet and finals. Have I even ordered graduation announcements? Plus, we are in the midst of fundraising for a mission trip to Brazil and when anyone mentions college, she freaks about "How am I going to pay for it?" Yep, she's a basket case. So am I.

I had two peaceful days of spring break. Then I got sick. Allergies kept me in bed and miserable so I had no chance to rest and relax before I had to jump back into the maelstrom. Plus, I continue the never-ending battle with migraines, in which I feel that if I gain an inch, I lose a mile.  Can I get a new brain, please? This one hurts too much.

Yes, this is a rant. Forgive me. I don't usually do this, especially in a public forum. I'm desperate for the break I have neither the time for, nor can I afford to take. So I will simply sit here and quietly and endlessly repeat a quote my aunt used to have hanging on her kitchen wall...

"One of these days I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. 

I've earned it. 

I deserve it. 

And no one is going to deprive me of it!"