Tantrums

She screamed upstairs. What's going on? I jolted from my couch, confused about what day or time it was. She screamed again, until she had no more breath, and then she screamed one more time. Is the house burning? Did she break a leg? Is she being beaten? The way she was screaming, she should have been stabbed. Then I heard my middle sister yell at her. Then my dad shouted. Whew. It was just Angie, my eleven-year-old sister unwinding from a long day. She does this quite a bit. She'll have a long day, usually filled with bike riding, swimming and watching way too much Nickelodeon with friends. Everything is sunshine and gumdrops, or so it seems. Then she comes home, and she crashes from her perch atop the clouds and she crashes hard. That's when the demons take over. Then she becomes a minefield, waiting for someone to make one false step. As soon as you do, BOOM! The tears start flowing and everything, regardless of how calm or reasonable it might be, merits a "SHUUUUUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" These little tropical storms of pre-teen hormones and sugar crashes happen about twice a week. I usually get frustrated with her and I started to last night, but then I realized, Hey, I'm pretty sure I did the same thing she's doing last week.

Two weeks prior was probably the best six day span that I've had in recent memory. It started off with a softball doubleheader in the rain and a free Spoon concert later that night and it ended with a fan-freakin-tastic 2+ hour Cake concert in New Haven with my lady friend. In between, the week was filled with jam sessions, stress-free work days, studying German and working on my Fulbright Application. I was living large... as least large in my standards.

Waking up in New Haven on Sunday, however, I felt tired. I felt drained. And worst, I felt cranky. Sitting in traffic on the way home was almost enraging. At work the next day, an overturned 18-wheeler at the toll plaza made me 30 seconds late for work, an arrival that earned me a week's worth of showing up at 8:45. The next day I went to play guitar at my friend's place and blew out my front-right tire as I parked in front of his house. My week was filled with little mental miscalculations like this one. My head felt heavy. I felt slow and incompetent. I started getting down on myself. It almost felt impossible to be happy or laugh. God Tom, you suck at EVERYTHING. Why do you even play guitar? Why are you even applying for a Fulbright? Yes, these were actual thoughts.

Then Thursday, I felt exceptionally crappy. The computer screen seemed to burn my eyes moreso than normal. My head hurt. I felt weak and tired. I tried going for a run after work to see if exercise would make me feel any better. Within the first 200 feet my face and sinuses felt like they were going to explode. And then, Ah ha! I wasn't depressed or suddenly incompetent at everything, I was just sick.

By Saturday, I was back to being my obnoxiously optimistic self with my irrational emotions safely corralled. But I guess even at 23, I'm not immune to reverting back to an eleven-year old girl.