"Some kind of screaming..."

Several months ago we lost a piece of fascia from the side of our house, near the corner where our bedroom window is. Then another. Then another started to bend.

Then the soffit started sagging. A bird built a nest in the gap. It laid eggs. The eggs hatched. The baby birds cheeeeeeped incessantly.

I called a roofer, who came and looked at the roof and told me I just needed a gutter repairman.

So I called a gutter repairman. He came out, gave an estimate, and actually did the repair the next day. I didn't ask what he planned to do about the birds. They're annoying, but I didn't want them to die. I was worried that if the dude messed with the nest, the momma bird wouldn't come back to it and the birdies would starve.

Trace told me to assume they were fine, which I did. I relaxed knowing our roofing wasn't going to blow away.

Until this morning.

I woke up to a familiar scratching sound. Then cheeping. Like the screaming of the freaking lambs, Clarice.

What's going on? Are they trapped in the roof?? I hope to God they just have other access somehow (not that I'm crazy about birds living in the roof) because if they were imprisoned alive in there, I don't know how well I'd handle that. I have this thing about things being buried alive. Poor birdies.

My brain is broken. Pretty sure.

Ever since Mom passed away, I've had an exceptionally hard time holding my shit together keeping my emotions in check around this time of year.

At first I thought it was just one of the cyclical "troughs" people in the grief counseling business talk about.

Then I thought maybe I was just losing my mind.

Then I thought maybe it was Easter. I have good memories of Easter as a kid, but nothing Mom-specific to make me almost have run sobbing out of a yoga class. Yeah, that happened.

Then, last year, someone made a connection for me: the ND musical. It's always around this time of year. Mom and I both were always a part of it, so of course I'd associate it with her.

This seemed plausible, even though I hadn't really been aware in the front of my mind, at least, that the show was coming up.

Well, this year, the instability waited until after Easter to show its ugly face. It's here, and the musical starts tomorrow.

So, that's where we're at today.