Alone time, and growing old, and inherited sadness.

When too much of my energy flows outward, and I don't give myself nearly enough time to replenish my soul -- when I don't make time for myself, there isn't really an eloquent way to say it: I just feel shitty.

But then again, it's probably because I have more than just "energy" flowing outwards from me right now and my body literally feels depleted and drained, like a bloated balloon who'll soon find itself with jarring stretch marks.

Darn being a woman once a month, sometimes.

But, that. Being a woman, and all. I mean, I got married this past summer; bought a beautiful new home with my husband.

And yet.

And yet, I don't yet feel like an "adult", much less a "woman", either.

Maybe it's because I've always associated being a woman very closely with being a mother, and I don't feel ready to be(come) one yet, at all.

I mean, sure. The thought penetrates my mind here and there, and it sits for a while, simmering, planting its seed. But then my body starts rejecting it. I start to feel nauseous. Panicky. Anxious.

Fearful, almost.

I am afraid that I will be weak and that I will break. That I won't be strong enough for the both of us -- for all of us. That I will be terrible, and selfish, and a failure at it. A failure at it all.

Some blogger friends have told me, "You are never truly ready". But I know so many women who seem like such naturals, who seem like they're in their element, who seem like they've got it together.

They seem like "real" women, while I'm still stumbling around, still trying to figure out the rest of the puzzle pieces of my life.

But therein lies my problem. I have the tendency to see holes, even when my life is so full and my heart is so whole. It's a terrible, terrible trap I sometimes find myself falling into, for no reason at all. And when this happens, I start to wonder whether this sadness is something I've inherited from someone before me, and whether they inherited it from another person before them.

And then somehow I suddenly find myself half-assedly watching "Eat Pray Love" on TV, even though I'm not a middle-aged woman having a midlife crisis, and my husband coincidentally just FaceTimed me on my MacBook Air because I didn't realize my iPhone died.

The end. (For tonight.)