It’s Friday and I’m overwhelmed. Not with joy and happiness; rather, with life. With, you know, stuff. With the random assortment of what is expected of me and which is in direct contradiction to the random assortment of what I want to do.

For example, I have exactly 117 pages left of HP7. And I want to finish it. I want to finish it because I want to talk about it. And I can’t go to a lot of my blogs because they are talking about it. And Miss Priss is just beside herself wanting to talk about it. And she has to run into another room to keep from bursting.

I’m overwhelmed with work. Because I just hit the nineteen-year mark of doing what I do. And that’s all good and fine — indeed, it entitles me to a lot of freedom — but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been doing the same thing for a really long time. Only the names have changed.

I’m overwhelmed by the fact that school starts in about two weeks, and the happiness I felt at making what we thought was the right decision about Mr. Cool’s school change is now replaced by an incredible amount of anxiety. If what we did was the right thing to do, why do I feel this way?

I’m overwhelmed, again, by the fact that Miss Priss will be turning 13 in the next few months and I am suddenly going to be faced with two teenagers when, just yesterday, I had two toddlers.

Overwhelmed, too, by the fact that I have to attend another funeral for someone who should still be here.  The husband of a dear old friend.  She just retired.  They took a cruise, and they were looking forward to fishing, traveling,  and each other.

And I’m overwhelmed, of course, by the amount of crud that remains in my sinuses after almost three weeks.

I’d like nothing more than to be on a beach somewhere, tucked into my book, knowing that all is well with my life.

But instead, I am here.

And I’m overwhelmed.