The Five O'Clock Struggle

There is this feeling when the end of the day approaches and you haven't seen the sun—not because you didn't go outside, but because there was no sun to be seen—that seems to surreptitiously invade my pores and make me feel like crap. For me, it means that my heart will discreetly start racing and my chest will feel tight, like there is a knot in there somewhere that needs undoing—and it took me almost thirty years to understand that this is what they call anxiety.

It also means that I will start doubting everything: from my several extra pounds to my ability to parent, and the simplest of tasks will seem overwhelming (Did I miss the memo that said we were supposed to pretty much figure this stuff out on our own, suddenly, with no warning? Is everyone else just winging it like in school when we pretended to know what was going on in chemistry class? Are all brains like a browser with way too many tabs open, thus making the whole system feel like it's about to crash?).

I will be asking myself what the childless people are doing right now, and what freedom used to feel like. I will question my marriage—do we even know what passion is anymore?—and my smoking habit will creep in. I will sit outside in the ridiculous cold, like the air is all hatred for me, and pollute it with delicious, delicious, cancerous smoke, but this will not calm me down. In fact, it will do quite the opposite. I am now in a state of random panic on a Tuesday afternoon while the world continues to spin as slowly as ever. I will make the damn fish, the boring brown rice, the greenest of broccoli. My hands are now shaking and I feel like the most incapable of beings who can't even handle a Tuesday night like a regular grown-up.

At any given second, I will have all of the following subjects attacking my mind, as if preparing a takeover: death, money, should we get a cat, body image, health, parenting, do people really their house every week, upgrading the furniture, sex, loneliness, was that really a grey pube?!

And then I will remember: one of my husband's joints is outside on the deck. Why should he be the only one to have fun around here? I will ever-so-cautiously smoke one-point-five puffs of it, just so I don't end up lying on the couch eating cheddar cheese and chocolate while laughing at my three-year-old on a Tuesday night (this may or may not have happened before). The hand inside my chest immediately loosens its grip. I remember my older sister, for some reason, and her hearty laugh. I go back inside, finish dealing with the now not-so-boring process of cooking, and look in the rearview mirror of time, already smirking at the anxious bitch I was ten minutes ago. The husband and child are hilariously playing together. The food tastes good. The child eats it all; it's a miracle. There is lightness in the world, no matter how much I weigh. In fact, I might have some cheddar cheese and chocolate for dessert.

I get it now, why my husband goes out on the porch every day to do this; why he's not the one who seems about to burst into tears everyday when the sun (however unseen) is supposedly going down. All my problems would be solved if it wasn't for the fact that I am now indefinitely stuck to my seat and can only move my eyes to the left. Maybe I'll try three quarters of a puff next time. Everything is good until tomorrow's five o'clock struggle.