Fire and Numbness, Non-fatal

Right now, I have this strange empty feeling, combined with odd tingling down my neck. It isn't unfamiliar, but I haven't felt it in a while. This is the same feeling I used to get as a kid when my parents would fight, but there's something new here. A slight state of shock. My parents fights never came out of nowhere-- it was always building up like summer humidity before a Texas thunderstorm. Afterward, everything would be cool and dry, the tension released. But this isn't like that at all.

Because this came out of nowhere. A day better than the one before. A day in which I talked to the people I was scheduled to talk to, washed the dishes, folded the laundry, and had a little free time. A day in which I already knew what I was going to make for dinner.

And it's not the end of the world. No one died. There's just a threat. Some sad excuse for human waste has violated my mother's property, broken into the yard of a home I was living at only a few weeks ago, and literally set fire to the deck where we shared my wedding rehearsal.

This happened late in the evening. Luckily none of the animals were injured and a neighbor came to wake my mother who, with the assistance of her beau, tended to the matter and had the fire nearly out before the firefighters arrived. It was contained to the deck and there was no damage to the house. There will be an arson investigation and I hope to any and every higher power listening that they catch this disgrace and justice can be served. Mind you, justice in my mind has me waiting in the backyard of my mother's home with a shotgun at 2AM, begging the sad sack to emerge.

That said, my brand of justice is also an impossibility. I cannot afford another airline ticket, especially any time soon. I cannot put my family through the strain of watching me fly off with the baby again so soon. Likewise, I don't feel right about staying put and doing nothing when it feels like the home where I spent the most sustained years of childhood is under attack.

So I am at a loss. I can't stay and I can't go. The only path I can take at the moment is feeding my baby and making dinner. After that, Monty Python. Maybe by then the problem solving parts of my mind will have shown their usefulness.