is it foggy or is it just me?

It's the middle of September and cooler than normal for this time of year. At least this week. Usually, it is hot enough to feel as if it's still summer, but yesterday felt different.


I took Wyatt outside to play, not because I was being "nice Mommy" but because he had been asking me ever since we returned home from the park, where we were, you know, outside. The big kids are participating in Presidential Fitness with a bunch of other homeschoolers, but I guess he just didn't get it out of his system while we were there.


I put Elijah down for a nap, and even though I should have been making something for dinner, I decided to just take him out. It seemed easier, and frankly, I wasn't up for a fight.


Wyatt was happy to be out, and I tried to get through a few more pages of a John Irving novel that I had to renew at the library on my way home. Between evacuating, being sick, and starting school, I just haven't been able to sit down with a book, at least one without pictures, for any length of time. And stay awake, that is.


Anyway, as I sat outside, the air cool and the sky cloudy, this feeling of anxiety washed over me. I don't really even know how to explain it. The cool air and the not-so-sunny sky brought about a feeling of dread? I'm not sure that's right.


We used to live in a state with actual seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter, not just "hurricane season" and "not hurricane season." And while spring is probably my favorite because of the newness of it all, I love autumn. I really do. The crisp air and the changing of the leaves... it's beautiful. And sweaters, jeans and boots? Yeah, I like that too. But I think this feeling in me that I can't quite put my finger on may have more to do with the fact that soon it will be getting dark very early. I don't like it at all. I don't like that it's dark before dinner even hits the table and that the evenings and nights seem unending. I don't like the chill in the house. I don't like how it makes me feel.


It's not like I don't have enough to keep me busy. I mean, really, I have four kids, a husband, a household to run; I'm homeschooling, chauffeuring kids to and from activities, singing in the band at church, doing the women's bible study... I have stuff to do. But I find myself having to dig in my heels to try and shake away this fog that seems to want to swallow me whole. And it's all because of a slight "chill" in the air?


Call me crazy. You won't be the first.


I came back inside and made dinner, and the evening went on pretty much as usual for our house, but the fog? I woke up with it again this morning. We didn't have anywhere to be today, but I have found myself more than once standing outside, just to feel the end of summer sun on my untanned skin and the breeze on my face. I feel antsy and distracted. I have papers to grade and lesson plans to write, yet my inability to focus keeps me from doing the very things that I am certain would be a distraction from this "cloud" that I feel is hovering over me. It's a vicious cycle, no?


Yes, I have tried praying, and it reminds me of a song that a friend wrote that says something like this:


I think I'm losing my mind, 'cause every time that I pray, my mind wanders away, and I'm starting over and over again...


Maybe I need a good night's sleep and another Sudafed. Something's gotta give. I feel yucky.