I’m pretty sure I have never in my life craved a rejection letter so badly.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us are not fans of rejection, right? It leaves you with a sick feeling way down deep in your stomach and can lead to weeks of just wanting to take a nap and/or shove as much sugar and processed food in your face as your napping schedule will allow. It sucks.

But do you know what sucks more? Not getting rejected and listening to the deafening sound of crickets while your hope swings wildly by the weakest of threads. Are you idiotic to hold onto that hope? Because they probably don’t want you, right? But. Buuuuuut. They haven’t exactly said no, so maybe, just maybe, that might turn into a yes? You talk yourself around and around in neurotic circles until you’re so dizzy you don’t know what to think.

Let me give this some context.

“I didn’t pack pants.” I. didn’t. pack. pants.

I packed twelve changes of clothing, slippers, bathrobes, and a variety of car toys for the girls. But I did not pack myself pants.

Yes, I had a pair of sweatpants that were not meant to be seen by anyone who had no choice but to be stuck with me and a pair of leggings so worn that my ass was one rogue thread away from a nice summer breeze. But I had no actual pants to wear as I walked the halls of Great Wolf Lodge.

My husband looked at me with an eyebrow raised and I kind of wanted to pluck it off of his face. “How do you not remember pants?” asks he who only worried about packing for one human—and a human who wouldn’t have a total meltdown if he forgot something “essential” like the correct pair of patterned socks.

This, my friends, is one of those posts I deliver to you while actively trying to listen to my own advice. I am teetering dangerously on the edge of meltdown territory. I consider the tears shed after I dropped some library books down the stairs yesterday more than adequate proof. I would delve into all of the forces combining to give birth to this epic impending implosion, but it would bore you. Like, completely.

We all have our own shit to bear. We don’t really need to be bogged down by other people’s shit. It’s enough to climb out from under our own.

The magical secret behind climbing out and conquering that meltdown you feel rolling in isn’t actually all that magical. It comes down to one simple little idea: self care.

It was early summer. I was sticky and the sun was hot and I wandered our neighborhood trying desperately to get my baby to take a nap and maybe make myself feel like I had this motherhood thing down. My baby, however, had different ideas. She had shown signs of impending divahood very early on. From wailing until I held her, no matter how hard her dad tried to rock her into submission to screaming throughout the entire 45-minute car ride to visit my mom (every. single. time), low maintenance this child was not.

I was trying hard to get a handle on it, trying to fit all of the pieces of the puzzle together to figure out how best to deal with her little personality.

Going gluten free has made me even more defensive than usual.

Why? Well, there’s all sorts of debate about this whole gluten thing. Most people will agree with the fact that there’s a percentage of the population who has a major problem with gluten. These people cannot eat the stuff without getting really sick. They have celiac. Since it’s diagnosable and has an official name, most people are OK with acknowledging that it exists.

Where you start to lose some of the believers is when you talk about gluten intolerance. This is not something very official. A lot of people have self-diagnosed themselves as having an issue. Other people (like me) have had medical professionals tell them that they “probably have an intolerance and should avoid it” or that their antibody levels are off and their celiac results may be a false negative. A colon biopsy can give you a definitive answer but… that means you need to go and get your colon biopsied. Uh, no thank you.

Here’s what I know.

If we’re out at a restaurant or something and I eat gluten by accident (say forgetting that sometimes flour is used to help bind meatballs), I’m bloated like I’m six months pregnant before we even get in the driveway. I feel sick and lethargic and I don’t want to talk to anyone. Sometimes my stomach aches and burns and twists so that the only thing I can do is curl up in a fetal position and sleep. After a few hours, I start to feel better but it can take days for the bloating and the overall feeling of grossness to leave me.

Call it whatever you’d like, but it happens when I eat foods containing gluten. That means I’d rather avoid the stuff so that I can function like a normal human.