Hello From Under My Rock

Is anyone still here?

I have started, and not finished, about 20 posts in the past few weeks. None of them have seen the light of day. A couple of them might. I've written one about how someone from Amway totally made my day, one about how MomBragging needs to become a thing, one about secrets, one about how long it's been since I've done anything that even remotely resembles sex (dreams involving Louis CK and/or Googling "Jon Hamm commando" don't count) and one about how being laid off and then looking for a job is WAY too much like getting divorced and having to start dating again. Any of these sound interesting?

Our little family had one of our craziest, busiest weeks evah. In the span of 7 days, the following happened:

My school-year preschoolers graduated (and I cried like a mofo).
The eldest of my brood, Charlie, finished off another semester of college with near-perfect grades and began working for Whole Foods (yay for grassfed beef 20% off, amirite??) along with starting an internship with my ex-father in law's business.
William and Henry finished 8th and 10th grade, respectively. And as far as I know, both are being allowed back in the next grade up come September.
I got my first haircut since last May. I call it the annual "Shearing of the Duggar" and I'm pretty sure my kickass friend Kathryn, who cut my hair, found a few small animals nesting on my head but had the class to not say anything about it. I heart you, Kathryn!
Family Circle magazine sent a professional photographer out to my house for a photo shoot. They are publishing one of my essays in an upcoming issue and needed pics of me and all dem babies of mine. I was sweating profusely because I was encased in Spanx from my armpits to my knees but the photographer (and his assistant/wife) were kind and let me sip an ice cold martini between shots. Since martinis make me super sexy and funny I'm sure the last few pictures were the best (winky face here). I loathe having my picture taken, so this was a really tough thing. I'm fat; I have a rogue front tooth that's moving forward, giving me a hillbilly smile and there was sweat beading on my face faster than I could mop it up. Please join me in praying that David Bowman is kind with the photoshopping. (David, if you happen to be reading, I'd do just about anything for shoulders and smaller upper arms. Thanks!)

That's my sweat on the driveway. Just kidding. 

Molly, my girl, graduated from high school. She is, as my kids used to say when they were wee, "all dunny". Done. Finito. The end. The school does a remarkable job of getting 600+ kids all graduated in 2 hours. I have to complain about one thing, though: people who take off after their kid's name has been called. Now, I can hear the "BUTS" already: "But we had to get out of there! But our last name is Aardvaark, bitch!" "But we had to go secure the best spot for after-grad pictures!" I don't care. Two of you decided to leave and walked right in front of me at the exact same moment my daughter grabbed hold of her diploma. You know those once-in-a-lifetime things you can't ever recreate? That was one of them. Hope you avoided the traffic successfully, assholes.
Less than 24 hours after she graduated, we had her party. Psycho doesn't begin to explain my state of mind that day. My apologies to my children. And to my BFF's kids, who tried to come over early and nosh on the grub. I might have screamed at them with a horrifying, guttural, demonic voice to "GET OUT!! PARTY STARTS AT 6!!!". I hope that wasn't pee I saw streaming down the leg of the younger one as they booked it far away from the sweaty screaming banshee. The party was a success, despite a lower-than-hoped turnout by people and a higher-than-hoped turnout by raindrops and mosquitoes. I have this amazing circle of hens who have been there for me through pretty much everything, and I was really glad to close the party down with most of them. Molly decided to buy herself a Macbook for college and as I type this I'm giving her dirty looks to finish writing thank you notes. Two grad parties, down- two to go.

Phew.

I guess I could say that being busy has kept me from writing. But that would be a lie. The truth is, I'm feeling frozen. Paralyzed. The job search is not going so great. Thinking about Molly leaving for school is filling me with dread...not so much because she's leaving, but because I'm terrified about money and all the things it pays for and not having enough of it for everything.

A friend of mine made a comment on a facebook post the other day. We were discussing heroin, of all things, and how it's making a huge comeback (more on this later, but OMG it's bad). I was clueless about this latest "thing" and my friend said: "I think you've been under a rock..". At first I was kind of like, "Say what??" and then I realized that she was right.

I have been living under a rock. Not just about heroin, but about everything. It's safe and cool under here, and I can't see things that are looming: kids leaving the nest, my job ending in two months, the fact that my joy has kind of left the building. I wouldn't call my rock depression, but I would say that it's a close relative. Maybe a second cousin.

I'm glad my friend made that comment, because in turn, it made me think. As cozy as it is under this rock, I need to get out from under it and face things. Life doesn't stop happening just because some of us find it too scary or too unpredictable to handle. And for those of us who hide from it, who do a great job of pretending that everything is JUST FINE when inside we are reeling with anxiety and doubt and worry...that's not good. Because we are missing out.

Thank you to everyone who has commented or emailed or nudged me over the past few weeks. It feels really nice to be missed, even if the reason I've been missing isn't super fun.