Emotional Armageddon

Well, it had to happen sometime. 

Today is both a full moon -- which you know drives me completely insane -- plus my mother's birthday and, since she is no longer around to celebrate with me, every year I voluntarily travel to an unsteady and nostalgia-soaked place in my brain where all I want to do is sit under the kitchen table and play the ukelele....or, at the very least, spell it right.

Blam-o! Emotional Armageddon.

It makes perfect sense that the simultaneous occurrence of these two events might be tricky. So, since I am nothing if not thoughtful, I prepared my family yesterday--emailing the boys who, as usual, did not take me the least bit seriously and by talking to Seth when he returned from work using lots of hyperbole and wiggling my eyebrows for emphasis.

His response was to pat my hand and go out to play Wednesday night bocce. I can't really expect much more. That man has been through hell and back with me as I ride my emotional seesaw (try finding that at the playground, kids). Nothing much scares him anymore.

Why am I so moody?

But this has potential for trouble: my mother's birthday is the official date when I look back on our lives together and feel horribly guilty for every single time I was not the perfect daughter, which was mostly always...and wish I could make up for it.

Add a full moon (which, since we are comprised mostly of  water, makes my emotions roil like the ocean in a hurricane) to this annual carnival of neurosis and there might be a screen play for a new Woody Allen movie in the making. 

I would like Penelope Cruz
to play me in the movie.

So, how shall I spend my day?

As I requested, Seth hid my car keys so I cannot go out and buy lots of donuts and cheese (serves me right---I should have taken care of that yesterday). 

I was also thinking about singing along to some Amy Winehouse but since she died, her music makes me too sad (even for today).

So, instead, maybe I'll just do my make-up just like hers in tribute but I own no liquid eyeliner. I could use a sharpie but it will take a week to wash off and we have plans for this Saturday evening.  So, scratch that.

If I could drive, I might take my donuts to Best Buy and sit and watch their wall of TVs because if one TV is good then 30 should be better. But not if it's the new Price is Right because Wayne Brady scares me. Not to mention, I always feel sorry for the TVs with the washed out pictures because who's going to buy them when it's as plain as day that there are others with sharper resolution? 

Available over the counter.

Who needs all that angst...forget it.

Maybe I'll check what's on Turner Classic Movies!

If I'm lucky, it'll be Pride of the Yankees which always makes me sob even though I know the ending but the way that microphone reverberates

in the stadium just kills me.

But if Lou Gehrig could be so brave then why am I such a huge baby? Okay, no movie watching.

Nor does it help that I awoke this morning with a weird new wrinkle on my face but it turned out to be just from the pillow so I can relax...although who really can relax when your collagen is draining out like sap from a maple tree in springtime? But there's nothing to be done in that department, is there?

"Snap out of it!"

Sigh.

So maybe I should just try to keep it together and put Emotional Armageddon on hold. It's a gorgeous day so it might make sense to ignore the full moon and count a few blessings while I'm at it, too. Could it be that I have achieved a new level of emotional health?

Nah.

Happy birthday, Ma...XO.