Slipping through my fingers

I have the loveliest Fridays in the world. I drop the cherubs at school, walk round the park with a friend, have an art lesson, then go on to Pilates. Today I also had a mummy's lunch with three friends.

So why did I wake up in tears?

It was partly that, in a dream, I conjured up a little dress that Child Two used to wear when she was about 2 and a half (my favourite age). It was a beautiful little pinafore dress, in soft corduroy, in a shade of celestial blue so gorgeous I've never found before or since. On the front it had 'In the Garden' embroidered in navy with two little flowers. She looked adorable in it.

Seeing that dress again in a dream chimed with a beautiful recent post by Rosiero about her daughter, Kay, having her last day at school, which she tied in with the song Slipping Through My Fingers from Mamma Mia. I deliberately didn't watch the clip, knowing I would end up in tears, but the mood of melancholy seeped into me anyway. My little girl in the blue dress is lost forever, now a different person and on the brink of adolescence. That would always have been the case, no matter what happened between X and me, but I have ripped up so much of my own volition that now, I cannot share my memories of that little girl in the blue dress with anyone.

Another part of my dream featured a single friend, who often joins me and the girls on outings, who this time went into the most spectacular strop at having to watch their ballroom dancing lesson. Another friend, who has Way Too Much therapy, says that in a dream, all the characters are, in fact, representations of yourself. Was I projecting my own boredom at watching the children's lessons? Actually, I really enjoy going to all their dancing classes as I chat relentlessly with other mummy friends, but it made me wonder.

All week, I have had ridiculous, unfounded nagging worries about leaving the iron on/front door open/side gate unlatched. At Pilates, the teacher asked me if I was stressed as my shoulders were up by my ears. Another friend brought up the question of Scarlet Women and I spent a long time berating myself for my actions three years ago - though I do tell myself there were mitigating circumstances. Then I discovered today I had made a really stupid mistake in an article (sorry, Linda!!). Not something I would normally do.

What is going on? Am I sliding down into depression again (I am usually the last to know)? Or is it just the guilt? I think I need a holiday. And not, I suspect, the nine-week, school-free stretch looming ahead. Or, maybe, just maybe, I should stop being so self-indulgent, pull myself together and count my many, many blessings more thoroughly this time