I was feeling mopey thinking about my early childhood and I had the Dixie Chick’s song So Hard on in the background.  It’s nominally about fertility problems.  It’s not hard to ignore about three lines and generalize it to other topics.  I’m just saying.  I’m having a hard time with this whole parenting gig sometimes.  I know my reactions are wrong.  I know when I sound like my mother.  I don’t know who else to sound like.  I don’t have very many people I feel comfortable around.  People make me feel tense.  I get edgy.  And bitchy.  And shit still rolls down hill.  I’m minor compared to everything I knew.  I know that.  But this isn’t who I wanted to be when I grew up.

If I’m not satisfied with my behavior I need to change it.  It’s hard right now because Calli is in the last throes of babyhood before becoming a talking person.  I’m having a very hard time waiting for that jump.  It came so early with Shanna.  I’m not a fan of the pre-verbal phase.  I still think Arwyn said it best.  I feel triggered when I spend a lot of time with my kids if I have to do anything else at the same time.  As long as I can be idle and just focused on them I can handle them.  They are not too much stimulus under those circumstances.  The problem comes when I am trying to get something done (like making breakfast) and it isn’t happening fast enough for Calli.  She starts screeching and it hurts my ears.  I start feeling anger.  It’s hard to tamp it down.  I have so much anger rolling around in me right now.

Reading through the whole story yesterday made me see spots where I have new perspective on why my mom and sister acted the ways they did.  Being a parent changes my point of view.  Funny, that.  But writing my story down means I can’t retreat to the sanctity of the parents point of view, either.  I stand there feeling bad for Calli that life is so hard.  She really and truly can’t have what she wants very much of the time.  She wants to be able to touch me any time she wants any way she wants.  She feels like she needs that from me.  But I can’t take how rough she is.  Oh gosh she is rough with me.  I get really angry.  I’m tired of being hurt.  I’m so. fucking. tired. of. being. hurt.  It’s so hard.

But she’s in the last throes of babyhood.  Soon it will be gone forever.  I don’t want my kids to remember me being angry all the time.  That is not what I want them to have as their story.  I don’t want them to remember me retreating with dramatic explosions.  Even though I’m not insulting any one.  Even though I’m just stomping my feet and huffing.  I don’t want to be that person.  How do you just decide to be someone else?  I was someone else with Shanna.  I narrowed my world to just her.  I gave her every single scrap and ounce of patience I had for any and everything in the whole world.  It was a nice year.  I couldn’t do that with Calli.  It’s so hard being a younger child.  You never ever get your needs fully met. You are short changed from birth.  Says the self-pitying youngest of four.

But then the song changed.  Best Days of Your Life by Kellie Pickler.  And I got a very nice email.  Right that minute.  My chest exploded with this moment of Oh My Fucking God.  When I’m feeling upbeat and I think about my life once I became an adult… well.  I’m pretty fucking cool.  I’ve done a lot of really neat things.  And I’m going to do a lot more.  As much as I possibly can.  And part of that is going to involve me figuring out how to be the person I want to be.  I will make mistakes and I will have bitchy days.  But when I do I tell my kids, “God I know my tone of voice sucks.  I’m really sorry.  It’s not you honey, I’m fussy about other things.”  I don’t think I was ever once told that.  Every bad mood that happened within a three block radius was my.fucking.fault.

Maybe I have already changed.  It’s hard on days when the kids want to test to see if I love them.  I do.  But I also have limited patience these days.  It’s time for the pendulum to swing back to them.  I think we should go out and play today.  And I’ll play the upbeat country songs.  The ones that make me feel like hot shit.  Because I rock like that.