Breaking Point

Ish had a couple of appointments in San Francisco today, so he's in town and coming home early. On his way home, he has stopped by Whole Foods to pick up something for dinner, which he will later cook, because I am sitting at home, at our large dining table with papers and charts and spreadsheets and notebooks scattered around me. I am buried in hundreds of to-dos and detailed emails I have to reply to. There are eleventeen billion details zooming around in my head and I am trying really, really hard not to drop a single ball.

I am usually pretty good about handling this level of pre-conference stress -- laughing whenever possible and trying really hard to just roll with the punches. But it's a tightrope walk, and the wrong combination of events is going to push me right over the edge into that bad place. That place where I stop finding things funny and lose all perspective.

For example.

Ish just texted me from the grocery store asking what I wanted him to pick up.

And I responded in the only way that made perfect sense to me: I burst into tears.

The thought of having to make an extra decision -- one not related to the conference -- seemed so mightily impossible that I just started sobbing.

This is not a good sign. Should not be crying at grocery-store texts.

Ahhh. But there it is. Writing it down moments after it happened and sharing it with the invisible internet world? Putting it in writing? Makes it funny. And now I feel better. (Thanks, blogging!)

Stupid tightrope.