Missing Person

My husband has issued a missing person report. It reads as follows:

MISSING: My wife of almost 19 years is missing. I'm not sure how it happened, or exactly when, but she is no longer here. The woman who could organize, create, structure, and multi-task has vanished. Have you seen her? I could see the signs that she was fading and tried to help her, but it was useless. I miss her and the way she used to be. She's gone and I hope she'll come back soon.

No, he's not kidding. The woman he used to know is no longer. Even I can't explain what has happened to me, but I know that something has. I can no longer function as I used to. Now too much stress, too much activity, or too much of anything causes me to shutdown. I could say it's the move to a different culture, or I could say it's the reality of life that I haven't been used to in 2 1/2 years, but I don't want to make excuses. Life is what it is. All I know is I can't handle it the way I once did.

What happened to the woman who jetted off with her two children to a foreign country for a week? Where is the woman who juggled a preschool ministry, a women's conference, and a family all at once? I look in the mirror and don't recognize that face anymore. Instead, I lock myself out of the house, only to realize 4 hours later that the key was in the door the entire time, or bathe myself with the shampoo rather than the soap just because.

A phase of life? A mid-life crisis? Who's to say? All I know is a once strong woman is now a fragile shell -- a missing person indeed.