A Screetching Halt

Someone close to my girls and me is very, very sick. To protect privacy, I won't publicly disclose details, but I feel my cognitions in a frenzied state and my hope is that giving them actual words will make them smaller and a bit less intimidating. You know those situations that have the potential to be so big that every detail you hear branches off into a thousand directions...how that detail is cause for concern, how it might be reassuring, the implications of that detail and the impact it will have on this person, and that person, and that person, and you, and...oh my gosh, what about [insert name of person that may be hit the hardest]? That's what's happening.

I know things don't look good. I don't know the extent, I don't know the plan (and I don't know that there is even a plan yet), and I don't know how to get up from this chair and keep going with life. There is a huge and catastrophic storm moving in this direction...its time of arrival and whether or not it even will arrive are uncertain. All I can do is wait and hope.

Then there is the issue of the girls. At what point to I jump in, interrupt their day-to-day life to which they are entitled and drop this bomb on them. I am figuring out how to carefully walk the fine line of keeping them informed without burdening them with something for which we as adults are hardly equipped to handle.

I have that stuck feeling. I want off this ride. I want to step out of the line and wait by the exit and let everyone else tell me how it was.

This sucks.