Welcome To My Breakdown – UPDATED

That’s a song by Alice Cooper, right? Or lyrics?

Actually I have another song, “Mama’s Got a Squeezebox” in my head, but the words are “Mama’s got a Burn Out…”

The details aren’t important, but I somehow managed to commit myself to several different, rather big, projects whose deadlines all fell between last Thursday and today. Actually, the big commitments end on Thursday, after I speak at a parish in New Jersey on Wednesday night (oh, by the way, I’ll be speaking at Holy Cross Church, in Rumson, New Jersey on Wednesday night, directly after the Vigil Mass for the Solemnity. If you’re going to be in the nabe, swing over!)

But today was the killer day, and when I managed to meet the last two deadlines and do a few other things, I decided to take a nap. I had the most wonderful dream, about my older son (Kitty’s fiancee, who has been under so much pressure lately). He was about five, and dragging me to a store to show me what he really, really wanted for Christmas! Typically, it was something very small that I didn’t wholly understand, but I wanted to get it for him. Throughout the dream, however, I heard and “saw” a beautiful song — one that seemed familiar to me — a mother’s song to her son, about how she has been imperfect and regretful, but he has always been her beloved angel.

Well, it turns out, I didn’t know the song — I lost it the instant I awoke. And I awoke weeping, just on a sentimental overload, which is something that has never happened to me. I texted my son about it and of course, closed with “I love you.”

And then I worried that he’d be calling back, saying, “are you alright? Are you working too hard? Because this sounds nuts!”

But he didn’t. Instead he sent me an email, said the text was very sweet, but also, in light of this, just a tad spooky. With the dream text, I checked off yet one more category. If we had a Janie in our family, we’d both be worried!

Turns out, I’m apparently quite, quite normal for a mother!