Emotional Rescue

Do you ever have days when you feel solely responsible for your family's emotional equilibrium, and fear that you'll overturn that apple cart any minute? I had one of those days today.

On the one hand, it's good news that my kids depend on me to help them through anxious moments, and take my displeasure seriously. That's what we all want, surely.

But then, here's my daughter waking me up at 6 a.m. in full anxiety-attack mode, needing me to talk her through her nervousness about going back to school after vacation, and her fear that she will either throw-up or cry. I worry when I take a quick shower: Is she going to fall apart if I'm not in chatting distance? Will she lose her waffles? Will I miss a call from the nurse's office when I'm out taking her brother to school?

And then I'm out taking her brother to school, and he forgets his backpack, which means I have to drop him off and fight traffic again both ways to bring it to him. This is not the first time it's happened, and for just a second, I let the apple cart tip and snap at him: How hard is it to remember the dang backpack when it's right on top of your jacket! And then I snap at myself, because I know him, and how hard is it to remember to check that he took the dang backpack from right on top of his jacket!

I try to backtrack, but he's already off on a torrent of negative self-talk and recriminations that makes me worry that I've messed up his back-to-school behavior even before he's all the way back to school.

Worry. That's what I do all day. My emotional equilibrium is shot, anyway. By the time they come home from school, though, the morning's drama is forgotten, the school day was fine, the crisis is averted, the apples are nestled safely in the cart.

And that's what we all want, surely. But it would be nice, sometimes, not to walk a tightrope to get there. Those kids balancing on my shoulders are heavy.