I'm just a cave girl

The hardest to moderate are the ups and downs of my mood and outlook. I've surprised myself, as well as some longstanding friends, with the profound effect life has on me these days. I hate to use the words "vulnerable" or "raw", but that does seem like the best way to describe them. Part of me feels like a cave girl, I'm just learning how things really work.

Some days it's just fine, I'm happy that nothing important seems to be going on, and routine envelopes me warmly. On others, drama takes me by surprise. I try to look at it objectively, sometimes truly feeling untouched by it, like I'm in a coma and everything is going on around me. Other times I can't help but feel it stab me, I take every little thing personally, act irrational, or worse, I embarrass myself.

What's weird is that I was never like this. I used to let everything cruise by me. But that attitude I've decided was a fault, the result of which was that I felt nothing. I do blame much of it on being sleep deprived and exhausted from raising small children, but ultimately, I just let things slip by, I didn't speak up when I should have, I said yes to things I didn't want to do. I look back and wonder if I was a marshmallow living in a glass house.

What am I now? The jury is still out on that. The growth is slow, though much of that is the recovery of illness. The shoots are just coming out of the dead branches. I am learning to walk again (literally and figuratively) and navigate the reality of life and relationships.