A Minor Meltdown

Minor.  You could call it that.  Chernobyl was a minor meltdown right?  I've been building to this for a while now.  Probably my whole life actually, though I didn't become aware of it until recently it has pretty clearly always been there working on me behind the scenes. 

There have been two times in the last seven plus months where I have felt completely at ease.  Those two times where the visits I made to my "tribe" as my wife calls them.  There were two other times when I felt mostly at ease.  Those where the two times my mom visited here.  The rest of the last seven months I have been totally out of sorts.  I've never felt this way for anything like this long before.  The months of not sleeping, constantly having that feeling in the pit of my stomach like something terribly wrong was just around the corner, and tense muscles and grinding teeth finally pushed me over the edge.  I had what my wife identified as a panic attack.  I've never experienced one before, but I'll take her word for it on what it was.  I don't think the name is right though.  Panic is the lack of rational thought or the lack of the ability to listen to it and act accordingly.  This was more like being overwhelmed by too much rational thought. 

My wife did a great job of getting me back to a more even keel.  Once she did she told me there was no way I am going to make it out here three years.  I've been telling people for a while I don't know how I'm going to make it out here for three years, but primarily that is because saying I can't make it out here three years sounds overly dramatic.  It is, however, completely true.  I can't.  I'm in the wrong place and every fiber of my being is crying out to be in the right place.  All it knows is that it missed 43 years and can't miss anymore. 

There is a job I would really like open out there right now.  My wife told me to apply.  Our oldest has three years left of high school.  She promised him he wouldn't have to move again.  I didn't actually promise him that, but I don't want him to have to move again and I believe in backing her play.  As it stands now he doesn't want to move.  She told me to apply anyway.  If they offer me the job then we will figure something out.  Perhaps he will change his mind.  If he doesn't it might come down to me taking the little ones with me and her staying here with him until he finishes.  I hope it doesn't come to that, I don't want the family separated even temporarily, but I also cannot make it three years here.    So, I applied.  I don't know what to hope for.

It is hard to believe a little over seven months ago I would have said being adopted didn't affect me at all.