Mother Worries

I've been fretting about my grown children lately.

Juli is currently not answering her phone or emails, not returning messages. She's gone "dark," in other words. I worry when she gets like this. She's usually torturing herself with imagined guilt, or sleeping too much because she's depressed, or just cocooning because she's Juli, and that's what she's always done.

Alex is outwardly communicative, but guarded and not giving anything away emotionally.

When they get like this, I dream at night of mega-disasters. Mount Rainer blowing up and raining down volcanic ash. Apartment fires. Inner city unrest. Bus hijackings. Irrational Mother Worry to the nth degree.

Yesterday, I wrote them both an email asking them to go buy a rope and fashion a makeshift fire escape from their 3rd-floor apartment window, since they have only the one entrance/exit to the interior hallway of their building.

Sometimes, I think I'm just certifiably crazy. As long as they call me weekly, I'm fine. When they drop off the face of the communications grid, my subconscious takes over and runs amok.