A lovely dinner with my mother's family was marred by the inevitable rememberance of the pain and horror of the murder of her parents. I think I'm over that, I do. I think we're all over it.

But that evening I caught myself obsessively plucking at every ingrown hair on my legs; something I finally recognize that I only do when I'm upset.

And the next day my mind kept thinking surface thoughts and kept me busy doing laundry and filling my spice jars but all the while something deeper was churning as my chest got tighter and tighter and my throat more and more constricted.

I still made no connection between the painful dinner conversation and my body's sudden rebellion until last night when I could not sleep and suddenly found myself consumed with an overwhelming dread until I choked myself into an full-out asthma attack at 3am.

I forced myself to breathe, took my ventolin, and waited until my fingers and lips weren't blue anymore and then tried to figure out what had happened.

and when I stopped blocking everything and listened to myself I realized that I'm terrified. My body is just reflecting the state of my mind. We are all over the place; I'm here, my brother's a few hours north, my parents and sister are heading to Alaska. I'm afraid of another sudden, shocking loss. I'm afraid I'll never see one of them again. I'm so afraid that I made myself sick.

Normally I block out this fear but talking about their deaths suddenly brought that stress out in a visceral way.

I'd like to say that it's going to go away, but lately I've learned a lot of things about myself and I understand that this unreasoning fear is an unfortunate part of who I am right now. The best I can do is apply rational thought and remember that life is based on impermanence and move on to the next day.

As soon as I figured out what was going on with my mind, I fell asleep. I woke up exhausted but able to breathe.

I see this as a victory.

10:25 p.m. - 2006-08-08