Flashes of Panic

I don’t know how I wound up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, but long before my sister-in-law arrived at East End Beach at the end of her two and a half mile swim, I was ready to crawl back in.

My nieces, while waiting, had waded in to the ocean and were pretty much soaked with no dry clothes available, plus sand all over them and through their sandals. As mother and brother and I rounded them up, hosed off the sand, and found a quiet place, I recognized my own crankiness in them. They were tired and hot (or cold) and clammy, and someone else had been the center of attention for a few hours now. They didn’t know quite what they wanted, but it wasn’t this.

I’d love to say my own mood magically changed while I was lugging Sasha up off the beach, her thumb in her mouth and her gaze unfocused in the distance, but it didn’t. But I recognized it for what it was, a mood, and let it go. I know what it is, and I can keep an eye on it before it boils over. It’s a start.