One of the things I've found most fascinating about the past six months is how recognizable my "symptoms" of anxiety have become now that I'm not constantly experiencing them.  You know like when the sun sets in the evening and it's getting dark outside but your eyes adjust so you can still see just fine but if you're in a well lit room and someone suddenly cuts off the light the room goes black? The lack of light is so much more noticeable and easy to define.  On Saturday morning my light went out and I'm struggling a little bit to turn it back on.


We got Tagg's yearly allergy testing results in on Saturday.

Milk, egg, and peanut are all extremely elevated.  Please continue to follow strict avoidance and have epinephrine available at all times.

Yup, the blood test didn't offer us any hope that he's outgrowing his food allergies.  They even broke down the peanut protein into several different tests that can better gauge potential anaphylaxis and those weren't good news either.  So another year of living on the edge of my seat. Another year of explaining to an even older child why he can't eat the food at the birthday party and why I'm walking around the table with an oversized smile knocking mom's out of the way to personally wipe their child's hands down before they go back into the bouncy house ball pit with my son.  Or why we skip the Church Ice Cream Social all-together and I die a little inside each time I have to navigate the food section of Costco with him in tow.  Why I try to find softer or just flat out more interesting versions of "I'm sorry they don't have your kind" here.

But that's nothing new.  It's all just more of the same.  What I think is super fascinating is the way I'm dealing with it.  If you read here regularly you know that for months now I've been an early riser. Like riiiiiiiiiiil early.  Every day at 4:45ish my body wakes up and I'm excited.  I'm eager to sneak down stairs and sip my coffee and write.  I play on Pinterest.  I catch up on blogs I've missed.  I write blog posts for the day.  I write blogs posts that I'm not sure I'm ready to share with the world yet.  I work on my real estate data base and website.  I plan my day.  I play in photoshop.  I empty the dishwasher.  I read scary mommy articles on facebook.  I'm happy and eager to start my day.  I'm awake and productive all day before falling into bed excited about doing it all again tomorrow. Now y'all, sometimes productive just means taking the kids to the pool and throwing some chicken in the crock pot before we leave, I'm not trying to be Beyonce´.

The past few days since I got those results?  On the surface I'm okay with it.  It's what I was expecting.  Of all the diagnoses out there this one is easy.  There are no surprises, we've been managing this for years.  But the reality is that it is affecting me.  I'm not sleeping well.  I'm wide awake at 2 am and then sleeping late.  I'm feeling unproductive and agitated.  I have zero appetite.  I'm starting my day tired and already wishing it were bedtime.  The light went out.

I know I'm a complete weirdo because I think this whole thing is incredible.  Absolutely fascinating.  My mind literally has a mind of it's own.  The rational part of me knows that nothing has changed and this is manageable.  But the #girlboss part of my brain dictates that shit sucks right now and we're closed until further notice.  I'm going to embrace that and let myself feel it.  I'm going to give myself permission to be down right now.  Feel it fully then flush it.  That is so much healthier for me in the long run than ignoring my hurt and just carrying on as normal.

I want my light back on.  This time I'm not going to learn how to fumble around in the dark.  I'm just going to give myself a chance to adjust to the dark and then march straight back over to the light switch.