Breathing deep

Things I Know Are True:

 

Jimi loves me.

 

My parents love me.  Family - aunts, uncles, cousins - I have people who love me.

 

I am a great mother.

 

My girls are amazing miracles full of wonder and delight and I am so lucky to get to be their mom.

 

I am smart.

 

I am pretty.

 

I am a good person.

 

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I'm working this week on trying to not worry about things that I cannot control.  On setting boundaries.  On remembering things that are true, and not allowing myself to hold space for things that are not. 

 

Starting tomorrow, I've got to start working on my temper, too. 

 

I'm angry, a lot.  Way more than I probably reasonably should be.  For no good reason, usually.  Today, I couldn't find my tennis shoes.  They weren't where I thought I'd left them.  So I tried to look under the pile of dirty clothes on the floor by the bedroom door.  And i got mad at Jimi because there are three hampers full of his clean clothes right there, but no empty hamper for dirty clothes.  And so i threw the pile of dirty clothes into the middle of the bedroom floor, searching for my missing shoes that were not under the pile of dirty clothes, which only made me more mad.  There were tears.  I yelled.  Jimi told me to leave the house because he just couldn't even with me.  Geneva told me she didn't want me to be angry.  My heart broke, but I still had all of this fire inside, this madness that I needed to get out somehow, but breaking windows isn't an option and i can't really throw things at all because moms don't do those things and so I stomp and make passive aggressive comments under my breath toward my husband and my kids who aren't doing anything wrong at all, mostly I'm mad that they're just like me, leaving shit laying around and not picking up after themselves and not being very good housekeepers in general.  Maybe my life's problems would be solved with a housekeeper.  But probably not.

 

 

I got mad last Saturday night over pizza.  It was 9 o'clock, i'd just put a frozen pizza in the oven, thinking I had at least an hour before Geneva would want to go to bed - Uncle J was over!  as soon as I set the timer, she was hollering for milkies and ready to sleep.  I told Jimi I had a pizza in the oven and asked him to check it when the timer when off, then disappeared with G for our bedtime ritual.  An hour later, Jimi was waking me up, telling me my pizza was done...  oh, I was so mad!  Why did he wait 40 minutes to get me - he knows I fall asleep when i'm trying to get her down!  I stomped into the kitchen, pausing to look into the living room and see that Cora was still awake.  Awesome.  And then I saw my pizza, lukewarm and not fully cooked.  I turned the toaster oven back on and put it back in, but i was seeing red.  Uncle J left at some point, and apparently I freaked him out so much he asked Jimi later if I've ever hit him.  I haven't.  I'm not violent, just loud.  Not even yelling-at-other-people loud, and I certainly don't call names or anything like that.  I do stomp, though.  and slam stuff around.  and lately i'm prone to bursting into tears for very miniscule reasons. 

 

I need to get a hold of myself.  this sort of behavior is not acceptable, as I would say to Geneva. 

 

My head gets all cluttered.  There's so much - work, home, kids, husband, family, myself! - so much to do and remember and think about all the time.  So many balls to juggle.  When I drop one, or fear I may drop one, I'm so hard on myself, believing, in the moment of fear and anxiety, things that are not true, worrying myself to the point of a sick stomach about things that haven't happened, things that probably won't happen. 

 

 

Every woman I talk to about this says, "Me too.  Yes.  I understand.  I know."  That helps.  It really does.  It doesn't fix it, but it eases my mind.  It's not just me.  Maybe I'm not losing my mind.  Maybe I'm not crazy as a loon.  Maybe every little thing really is gonna be alright.

 

Jimi is awesome.  I know I say that a lot, and I take it for granted a lot, but when times get tough, he's always right there with the right words, and the truth.  He's really good at telling the truth, even if it's something I may not want to hear.  I love that about him.  It makes me feel safe, because I know that he is honest with me so we can always be on equal footing.  I don't always give him that same courtesy because I think by not speaking my mind i'm sparing his feelings, but then I end up acting like an asshole and the whole thing becomes way bigger than it needed to be or would have been if i'd just told him what was bothering me in the first place.  I'm working on that too, as part of my boundary-setting/worrying about things I can control exercise.  Jimi and I have had some really good talks on our way to work this week, and he's offered some introspections I hadn't considered - like how everything in my life is different today from how it was three years ago.  Hell, from a year ago!  I've had another baby, we have a willful toddler, my job changed entirely when I returned from maternity leave in January, and it's only gotten more stressful since.  That's a lot.  There are a lot of stressful situations I've been facing all at once, and it's no wonder the pressure is starting to catch up with me. 

 

...Deep breaths. 

One thing at a time. 

Don't worry about it if you can't change it. 

Deep breaths. 

Change what you can. 

Do your best. 

What are you really upset about? 

What is the root cause of your frustration? 

What can you do to change the situation? 

Deep breaths. 

Is this reaction setting a good example for the girls? 

Deep breaths. 

 Set boundaries. 

It is okay to tell someone what your boundaries are. 

It is okay to remind them if they forget and cross your boundaries. 

It is okay to have boundaries. 

Boundaries are not rude or mean. 

Deep breaths. 

You cannot control the emotions of others. 

It is okay if someone doesn't like you. 

Deep breaths. 

Remember how lucky you are. 

Remember the good in your life,

add it up - there is so much. 

Deep breaths...

 

 

Monday

9:45 on a Monday night.  Girls are in bed.  Husband is in bed.  Dogs are in bed.  Momma feels like she's getting away with something because she's drinking wine and blogging at 9:45 on a Monday night.  I'm not doing dishes, i'm not doing laundry, i'm not working - i'm fucking off and dammit it feels awesome. 

I think I need a vacation. An actual one, where I can relax.  Mom and I had talked about taking a family trip to the beach this year, but she backed out.  I was so disappointed - I knew that if she didn't go, it wouldn't happen for us.  Mainly because the idea of trying to go to the beach with two littles doesn't sound like anything that would be relaxing.  If Mom and Dad were along, though, Jimi and I probably could've managed to escape for at least one night for a walk on the beach. 

Jimi and I went to the mountains to get married, and spent an amazing, quiet, peaceful week taking in the beauty of the Smokies and hanging out in the hot tub.  I'll bet we could have fun doing that again.  It's not a walk on the beach, but I want to take Geneva to the woods anyhow, and little girls do sleep eventually, and hot tubs are awfully nice under the stars...

I probably should book us a trip to the mountains.  It's been 3 years.  It's time to go back. 

I need some apple pie.

Deep thoughts on a Friday night.

I started writing something dogging on myself, but I decided not to do that.  I spend plenty of time feeling bad about things I've said or done or not done or mistakes I've made- I don't really need to rehash or delve into it here.  No one really cares, and it'll just make me feel like shit.  Why do that? 

Why do we do that?  Wallow in our imperfections?  Or is it only me?  I think it's probably not - lots of people are making money off of other people feeling bad about themselves.

Ugh.  I don't even want to talk about this.  Why do I keep talking about it?  Let's change the subject.

Once upon a time, in another life, I had a best friend.  Her name was Kat, I've mentioned her here before, but I'm not going to link to any of that shit because who really cares and I know how it all went down, so whatever.  The thing is, I don't know if Kat and I ever actually liked each other.  That's not completely true.  It sort of is.  I don't really want to rehash all the details -

the tl:dr of it is that I was always jealous of her, from the very beginning. Everyone liked her more than they liked me.  Her hair was prettier than mine.  She had big boobs. 

People wanted to be her friend, whereas I desperately wanted people to want to be my friend. 

This angle just occurred to me, and is so deeply true and raw that it brought me to tears.  No shit.  Mainly because I'm still that little girl inside, the one who just wants someone to play with her, to be her friend...


(there's a rabbit hole!  let's go down it...)
  If I were to go to therapy, this is the part where I'd talk about how it probably goes back to when I moved into the advanced program in 4th grade - brand new school, no friends, and as it turned out, I was the dumb one in the class.  All of the kids had gone to school, at an advanced level, their entire (4th grade level) educational careers.  Then here I came, with my suburban middle-class public school run-of-the-mill education, and I didn't understand their new math or Spanish teacher who spoke actual paragraphs and expected you to not only understand but also respond.  WTF, this world was brand new and I was really bad at adapting to it.  None of the kids liked me, and none of them wanted to be my friends.  I was round and freckled and awkward with too-short badly permed hair and I was a tattle tale and a goody two shoes and wanted to be teacher's pet, but I think even Mrs. Vittitow didn't much care for me.

I was thinking of fourth grade the other day.  I'd heard a story of a kid who lost her mom to some sort of prolonged illness when she was 10, so her only memories of her mom weren't good ones, because her mom was sick and dying for two years, and so her temper and patience were in short supply and she often reacted poorly to the little girl being a little girl.  It made me so sad; my heart breaks for the little girl who grew up without her mom to hold her and sing to her and teach her things and who doesn't remember good things about her mom. But my heart is also broken for the mom, because you know that's not how she'd want her daughter to remember her.  She was sick. I don't know the details and I wasn't there, but I know most moms really love their kids and only want the best for them, and wouldn't want their only memories to be bad ones. 

Anyhow, so i'd heard this story, and I couldn't stop thinking about how lonely and sad I was in fourth grade, when I was about 9 or 10, and my mom was my only friend.  No kidding.  My mom. The one who said she couldn't be my friend BECAUSE she's my mom.  I was so overwhelmed with the love, I had to call her.

"I was thinking about that time you went on my class trip with me to Huntsville AL because if you didn't I wouldn't have had any friends at all and it would have been an awful trip for me."

"I don't remember anything like that.  I remember the trip, but I don't remember going because you didn't have friends."

"I probably never admitted that to you until just now.  It's the sort of thing I wouldn't have wanted to say anything about because I was too embarrassed.  But I didn't have a single friend in fourth grade.  If you hadn't gone on that trip with me, I would've been miserable.  I'm so glad you were my only friend, Momma.  I love you."

Let's come back to present day.

Oh goodness.  It took some effort to remember where I was going with this when I started out. 

I have some really awesome women in my life right now.  Women with whom I feel no competition, because I know that I am enough and I do not have to compete.  Women who are beautiful, but I am not jealous of them because I am beautiful too.  Women who are brilliant and intimidate the fuck out of me with their massive expensive brains, but who I am not afraid of because they teach me awesome things and will only help create a more interesting and amazing village for my daughters.  Women who live life to the fullest and inspire me to make the most of every day.  Women who work so hard to make loving homes and happy memories for their families. 

The part that blows my mind is that I genuinely feel like these want to be my friends.  I think they actually like me.  I know i'm not supposed to care what people think, but anyone who says they don't feel better when someone likes them is a liar.  The fact that these women like me makes me feel awesome.

It's really late, I've lost my point a hundred times and i'm still not sure I ever got back there, but i'm tired and I have to go to sleep.  Sweet dreams internet world. 

Now tell me how awesome I am.  ;)