Lists, Fears, Hurricaines, and Hags

The Chernobyl video kept me reeling for a few days. It's a hard act to follow. But life and the ol' blog must go on.

Today I found Ta-Da, a handy little tool for list making. I'm not one of those list making types, you know, the (ahem) a-personality orderly types. I'm more the distracted, diffused and disorderly type. But sometimes lists are as important as chocolate. Like for when it's time to move one's life to another city after living in the same town since rocks got hard.

We're doing some repairs and packing and trying to keep everything straight as we race down the home strectch toward the close of escrow. My memory is pathetic, so lists are my salvation. Lists of things to do and lists of those lists. You know how it is. So I made my first tentative little list. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. We're moving a thousand miles from here. So each item on the list is another step closer.

I could make my list either shared privately or publicly. I opted for public because (I admit it) I'm an attention whore. And anyway, I don't plan on putting up any porno or embarassing secrets.

---

I'm feeling kind of queasy today. Thinking about K flying home from Guatemala tomorrow. That adoptee panic thing that overcomes me. Everyone says "Don't worry" or "Breathe," as if I can just paste on a formula to take this knot out of my gut. They're right, of course, but I still wake up in the hours before dawn feeling as if I'm suffocating, drowning in my own thoughts. Partly the world situation, like a mass open sore, partly being an adoptee, partly the move, partly the anxiety about my loved ones. I mean, we're selling everything and moving a thousand miles just so we can be near her. If anything happened...

I'm so weary from the fear.

A little voice keeps saying, "Face our fears." So last night I did. I dove down into the hurricane inside and rode with it, leaned into its howling winds. I spun around in my private vortex and agonized. It threatened to eat me like a crunchy snack. But I wouldn't let it. I stayed with it, hung on like a rodeo cowgirl.

Pretty soon (so odd) a million sounds whirled in my head, thoughts spinning by at warp speed, like all the thoughts I've ever had and all the things I've ever learned, and all the things I've ever heard, there in the dark I heard them. R snored softly beside me. How is it guys can sleep through hurricanes?

After awhile I felt a losening, a lightening, even knowing that it would only be temporary. But a great weight came away, like that old hag dream some people get climbed off of me. At least for one night. Going to have to do it all over again tonight, but I'm sick of this fear controlling me.