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I'm having trouble handling it. I'm having trouble sleeping. I find myself worrying constantly. Work, family, friends, relationships, everything.

I've started my new job for Hatfield and McCoy, and am beginning to get "trained." I use the term loosely. Everyone seems to assume that I already know what I'm doing so my protests of "Wait, I don't exactly get it..." aren't met with detailed explanations, but rather with "oh, it's easy, you will."

Of course it's easy. Of course it is. And I'm sure I will someday. Excuse me, however, if I'd prefer to learn how to do it properly before I have to do the trial-by-error thing in which I fuck everything up, get yelled at, and THEN learn my lesson.

But it's easy. So why am I worried?

I miss my family. I feel completely disconnected with them. When I do talk to them, I feel like I never have any news for them, and when they report to me, I feel like I've missed SO MUCH. My nephews are getting gigantic... And I've met the oldest one twice, and the youngest once. My grandmother has Alzheimer�s and it's getting worse. I spent a week with my Dad in February and really reconnected with him and now I feel like we keep our conversations with each other short and to the point because we have nothing to say to each other and we both feel bad about it.

But it's my family, it should be easy.

The day after Katrina hit, I was mortified by the events unfolding in New Orleans. As the days passed, I had reached a point of absolute disbelief. How could this possibly be my country? I had to pinch myself--this couldn't be real. It couldn't possibly be happening. But it did. And I'm horrified.

We have this extensive, responsive bureaucracy in place. It should have been easy.

I have best friends moving away from me. Good friends drifting away from me. I have been a buoy to breakdowns, without having my own.

But that's what I do. That's what I've always done. It should be easy.

And yet here I sit, feeling like a bubble in a bullet box; about to burst.