Well, I spoke a little too soon. I’ve had a setback with the anxiety after I heard my son get up in the middle of the night on Monday (early Tuesday) and come downstairs. I followed to see what the matter was and found him upset, after a row with his girlfriend. It was three in the morning, and my anxiety levels were rising, just, as Mr Litlove said afterwards, as you can lose control of your temperature when you’re up at that hour with only a few braincells in operation. But what was I going to do? I wouldn’t have thought much of myself if I’d put my troubles in front of his, and as any parent of an almost-grown child knows, you don’t get so many opportunities to show them you love and support them. I can see that the challenge of these opportunities (for goodness knows parenting is rarely easy) is that they will come at inconvenient moments.
We spoke for about an hour and a half and it was a very good chat. The two of them made up the next day and my son was able to go to an important university interview yesterday with everything right in his world. So that was exactly the right outcome. As for me, the anxiety came and went as we talked, but when I got back to bed every muscle in my body seemed to be in a knot and I knew it wouldn’t be pretty when they unclenched. I’m not exactly thrilled that being virtuous should result in yet more days of feeling awful, but I’d do it again, because everything else about it was right. Now if I could just get rid of my post-adrenaline-poisoning headache, I’d be almost normal.
