Livin' The Easy Life

This pic is from our Disney Cruise to the Grand Cayman that we took last month. It reminds me of 80 degree weather and helps me mentally defrost when I step outside my house to a balmy 10 degrees. It also reminds me of how easy life can be. My biggest worry was "Did I put enough sunscreen on the kids?" and "Will this be enough beer to last the rest of the afternoon?". That's how I like to function. Like most writers/21st century moms, my mind is in a constant state of chatter. I can't turn it off and it makes me a fucking mess most of the time. When I say neurotic, I am diagnosing myself with no help from the medical profession. I consider the way I function in my cranium pretty neurotic and the rest of my life pretty planned and organized. I am a creature of habit and I like to know what is happening from moment to moment. Life doesn't always play along.
As you have gathered from previous posts and my recent article on mythirtyspot, it hasn't always been that way. I have had struggles and painful experiences. Perhaps that is why I can't fucking handle it when some piece of the jigsaw puzzle falls out or can't be found. It turns me into a gigantic asshole and my husband can attest to being on the receiving end of my wrath. Flooded basements, late payments, canceled meetings, forgotten wallets, missed flights...they send me over the edge. I don't claim to know how other people deal with this nonsense but I can tell you, I don't deal very well.
My family can attest to this. While the picture you see above looks calm and enjoyable, you would not have wanted to be related to me on the day the ship left port. I had spend weeks planning, packing and checking ever motherfucking dot on every motherfucking i. It was perfect and easy and according to my plan. The day of departure we got a recorded call that our ship was 7 hours late due to fog. LATE!!!! This was not in my plan and my brain was racking itself on how this could have possibly happened. I had done everything 'right' (that's a big one for me). What was I supposed to do with my kids on a foggy day in Texas for 7 hours while they screamed about not being on the ship? I didn't have that plan mapped out because life hadn't given me a memo early on. I tried to breath. My husband is a natural for winging life so this was just a cool experience we didn't know was going to show up on our lucky fucking doorstep. I got snappy and irritable. Things weren't going my way and wanted to jump up and down and have a major meltdown in the motel room.
Without going into too much detail, we all survived. We even had a little fun along the way. Even with all that knowledge under my belt, I don't look forward the the next hurdle life is going to throw at me. I learn something new about myself every time and every time I want to punch life in the fucking face because it wasn't in my plan. Will I ever grow out of it? Doubtful. My mom laughs when I tell her about things that are fucking my day up, she always says the same thing...this too shall pass. That may be true, but until then everyone better hold their breath and hope they can get out of the car I am driving really soon cause I am bound to flip someone off or pound on the steering wheel. Life can be a real bitch but it ain't got nothin' on me.