How does the average person do this thing called life without medication?

I've been at work for exactly 23 minutes. It's my first day without taking anxiety medication at the office. At home it has been a breeze. Here? I'm already choking for air to come into my lungs. Big, heaving breaths.

I've been reliving yesterday in my head since about 11pm last night. Sleep was rough. When my alarm kept going off every ten minutes, I almost chucked it at the wall.

Last night at dinner was like any other. We broke bread over strange conversation. My oldest asked something along the lines of, "You know what's stupid?" and the middle son chimed in, "Your face?"...from there we ended up talking about storks delivering babies to our house...only the middle son was all, "You mean a pelican?" and I laughed so hard I almost needed mouth to mouth. Kind of like how I feel right now, only under different circumstances. It's weird how things can shift so quickly.

When it comes to my kids, they drive me bat shit crazy. Pretty much as long as they're awake, I'm trying not to lose it. On them. But just like sibling rivalry, when someone messes with my kids, I'll drop any grudge I'm holding in the moment and protect them. It's how it's supposed to be.

My son's heart was chewed up, mangled and thrown to the ground for continuous stomping last night. He's only thirteen but that doesn't change how he was feeling. There was nothing I could do. In fact, my husband handled it because I couldn't. This is going to take place at least three dozen more times before he finds "the one" and yet I sit here crushed because he's crushed.

I want to fix it for him because I'm "the mom" but I can't. Instead I sit here, heart thumping, hoping my phone doesn't ring because he's lost it at school. A broken heart makes you do funny things. He's an emotional child as it is and even though I knew this day would come, I didn't think it would be so soon.

I want to place my kids inside a bubble so no harm can come to them. I want to protect them from future heart breaks over girls and everything else. I want to be their human shield. I know that's just silly. These are life events that will make them grow stronger. These events will form them into men who have to fight their own battles. I guess this means that starts at a young age. For us, that's thirteen...