My mind is a dangerous thing to leave unattended. Some people enjoy a few hours of silence, but not I. I was raised in a small house with a large family. Total chaos is where I am comfortable. Excessive solitude sends my fragile mind right over the edge to koo-koo town. Any absence of external chaos and distraction tends to draw the crazy inward, right into the dank recesses of my brain. Too much introspection sends my mind swirling into an endless abyss of its own internal chaos and distraction.

Left alone to my own devices, I get trapped in the mazes of my own head, and the little gerbil that runs my brain starts to get confused and runs in all directions. It explores every possible reason and outcome of any given situation and turns around at each dead end of the maze to try a new path until it, like me, ends up exhausted, withered, and desperate.

Silence draws out my Id. My Id suffers from chronically low self-esteem and anger management issues. Once roused, my Id systematically clobbers my Ego and my Superego into submission. My Id is a mean-spirited dominatrix. My Id wears leather chaps and is one heartless bitch. She can wither my carefully cultivated garden of self-esteem with one glancing blow.

Case in point: Saturday afternoon.

I loathe the term Golf widow, because admitting that you are one indicates that you buy-in to the term. It’s like accepting the fact the you are left deserted multiple times weekly by your mate. Admitting that my husband prefers to hit a small white ball around an overly-fertilized, flat, developed former wetland over spending time with his family is not exactly something I want to shout from the rooftops.

Yet, there I was, all alone again on a beautiful sunny Saturday. My husband Jim mentioned on his way out the door to spend five hours chasing a small white ball with a stick, that we might want to barbeque that evening with friends. I love me some nice weather and an evening with friends. I eagerly hopped into the car and headed for Costo to gather up the accoutrements.

My get-togethers tend to grow exponentially. We have a lot of great friends who I adore, and more often than not, a small get-together turns into a large get together, which is fine by me. Chaos is my friend, and coming from a large family, “the more the merrier� is my motto. Planning for this possibility, I picked up enough food to feed a small army. I returned from Costco with a few pounds of chicken, potato salad, a fruit plate, 8 cans of baked beans, a wagonload of buns, and a small trampoline (damn you Costco, for exploiting my weakness for the impulse purchase).

I put Maggie down for her afternoon nap, and went out to enjoy some rare, coveted time with a magazine in the sun. As I settled into my lounge chair, a thought snuck up on me. I realized that no one had returned my calls from the morning to verify their attendance at our barbeque. Harumph. As someone who is not afraid to call and pester people, I decided to try a few people again. I soon learned that the couple we had planned to get together with had made other plans. It seems some wires had been crossed at some point along the way. That kind of thing just happens every once in a while. No big deal, right?

I made a few more phone calls to our friends and neighbors. It was a beautiful day, and I was done with my cursed detox diet, and wanted to enjoy a nice meal and some good conversation with my favorite people. I smiled and dialed, and got one “no� after another. Everyone I knew had plans or was heading out of town. Now, mind you, I am pretty good with handling rejection in small doses. But after the 5th phone call and subsequent “no�, my mind started to go to strange places.

Had I offended someone recently? Was it some kind of conspiracy? Had I committed some major social faux-pas that had turned me into a pariah? I recalled that when I had been informed of our friend’s change in plans, Jim and I had awkwardly not been invited along. Not only that, but we had not been invited to do anything by anyone. AT ALL. Everyone had made plans. Without us! Why had we been excluded? Was it because I suck? God, do I suck? Was it because work full time? Due to my over-packed schedule and my inability to make play dates with my friends who work inside the home, was I labeled a has-been? Had my friends who don’t have children yet labeled me a distracted bore?

I became gripped by anxiety. I was defeated and deflated. I grabbed one of the100 or so perrier waters I had purchased in bulk in anticipation for my imaginary Barbeque with my imaginary friends. I sat on the couch and sipped my water and stared.

My fearful thoughts rambled on. I wondered how I allowed myself to get to this place. Have I really changed that much? Had the stresses of motherhood eaten away what personality I had left? Had my unhappiness with my job seeped into other areas of my life? Was I an angry, miserable bore? Were my friends avoiding me because of my bad attitude and my tendency to express unsolicited opinions after a couple glasses of wine? Do I gossip too much? Am I really a mean-spirited person? Do I talk about my child too much? Do I ask enough questions? Had I taken my bad habit of taking people for granted too far, and actually burned bridges? OH MY GOD ALL I DO IS TALK ABOUT MYSELF! NO WONDER NO ONE WANTS TO COME OVER FOR A BARBECUE!!!!

Then the gerbil in my head tried a new route, with my leather-clad dominatrix “Id� snapping encouragement behind his scampering feet with her bullwhip. I began to berate myself for being disappointed. For the love of God, all this means is that a lot of people made plans this weekend. It has nothing to do with me. Not everything has something to do with me. What am I? The center of the universe for crying out loud? GOD I AM SO AFFECTED! WHY AM I SO EASILY AFFECTED? Then again, maybe it IS me… Oh God! I am so affected that no one wants to come over! How do I just start over? Do I need to go out and get new friends? How can I make amends? How had I let things get so bad? Why hadn’t I seen this coming?

Defeated, I wandered around the house and stopped to open the fridge to view its contents. Twelve pounds of potato salad sat on the shelf and mocked me, along with the 24 organic chicken sausages.

I was jolted out of my pity party and neurotic angst by the telephone. The phone. It was ringing. Holy crap the phone was ringing!

It was my neighbor Jill, returning my call to ask if we wanted to get together that evening. Thank GOD. She asked if I wanted to order pizza for the kids, and I was too embarrassed to tell her I had enough food to feed a small army at my house.

An hour later and still emotionally wobbly, I brought Maggie over to the neighbor’s house to play. We ordered pizza, and proceeded to have a wonderful time. Jim came home from golfing, wondering why I was at the neighbors, and why the neighbors weren’t over at our house along with the rest of our friends. I shrugged my shoulders and said “a lot of people had plans tonight…no big deal…..Oh, and YOU ARE NEVER GOLFING EVER, EVER AGAIN.�