For the past few weeks, while I’m driving back from dropping a kid at school or attending a final meeting, I find myself winding my way through the hills of Oak View and crying.

Sunday, I spent several hours sitting with a friend at a bar. And while that last sentence was my most used excuse in my 20’s for why I hadn’t called my mother in months, it happens to be a now rare event.

We are on Day 4 of a teen mental meltdown and we are exhausted. The tears, the silence, the blind fear gripping her by the ankles, dragging her down. It takes every ounce of strength I have to hold onto her, pull her up and out, back into the light.

In about two weeks, the Home and Garden Television Network will be calling to tell me I’ve won their Dream House Sweepstakes and the people of Warren, VT are waiting with open arms.

I’m a 50 year old mom. Occasionally, I’m up for a good “whoa, this chick’s mess is about 1,000 degrees hotter than mine” show. This is how I found myself watching Netflix’s new series, “The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window”.

You know how when you travel somewhere you are constantly sizing up the people, trying to figure out if you could live there? Or at the very least, if you were suddenly struck with a burst appendix, would the locals rush to your side and comfort you or step over you and continue on down the sidewalk?

After 15.5 hours in a car eating nothing but soy crackers and grapes, you can imagine how excited I was to find out Boise is the farm-to-table mecca in the Pacific Northwest. Really sad I didn’t pack elastic waistband pants.

Lesson #3 of Nervous Breakdowns: Ignore your sick child.

I was born under a new moon and during a partial solar eclipse. The light and I have been in conversation my entire life. And we have many more things to discuss.