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Zsuzsa on the passenger seat checks her texts while I’m driving. A couple in the park manages three young children. Innocent scenes make me relive the pain of loneliness within a relationship. Beneath the skin, tension still aches.

It is said one of PTSD symptoms is to relive the traumatic event, through unwanted and recurring memories. My psychologist during our first meeting told me it takes time to recover from a significant relationship breakdown, on average five years. I hope he is wrong and I hope he is right. I’ve done one. I can do five. It will be fine.

Truth might be simpler though, and the cause of my unease more immediate. I might just experience a temporary and very transitional kind of anxiety. From a break, to back to the routine.

Mine has now been disturbed for three weeks, the last ten days filled with children talks, children love, sibling tensions and constant asks for guidance.

School is back now. I’ve been happy returning to work, enjoying some adult equal footing conversation. And will get back to my well adjusted weekly routine like in a comfortable old skin.

A change in focus needing some time for adjustment.

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routine

[ roo-teen ]

noun

  1. a customary or regular course of procedure.
  2. commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity:the routine of an office.
  3. regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.
  4. a rehearsed act, performance, or part of a performance: a comic routine; a dance routine.
  5. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response:Don’t give me that brotherly-love routine!

adjective

  1. of the nature of, proceeding by, or adhering to routine:routine duties.
  2. dull or uninteresting; commonplace.

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transition

[ tran-zish–uhn ]

noun

movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change:the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Music.

  1. a passing from one key to another; modulation.
  2. a brief modulation; a modulation used in passing.
  3. a sudden, unprepared modulation.
  4. a passage from one scene to another by sound effects, music, etc., as in a television program, theatrical production, or the like.

verb (used without object)

  1. to make a transition:He had difficulty transitioning from enlisted man to officer.
  2. to change from one gender identity to another or to align one’s dress, behavior, etc., with one’s gender identity:My friend is transitioning without hormone therapy or surgery

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adjustment

[ uh–juhst-muhnt ]

noun

  1. the act of adjusting; adaptation to a particular condition, position, or purpose.
  2. the state of being adjusted; orderly relation of parts or elements.
  3. a device, as a knob or lever, for adjusting:the adjustments on a television set.
  4. the act of bringing something into conformity with external requirements:the adjustment of one’s view of reality.
  5. harmony achieved by modification or change of a position:They worked out an adjustment of their conflicting ideas.

Sociology. 

a process of modifying, adapting, or altering individual or collective patterns of behavior so as to bring them into conformity with other such patterns, as with those provided by a cultural environment.