Thursday, July 31, 2014

Ugly Tuesday

Oh man was Tuesday a bad day. It started bad and got progressively worse until the very end, which is when it suddenly got so much better.

It was all me too. That’s the worst part. It was all in my head, roiling around, screaming obscenities at my all day long. At one point that voice, I’ll call her Thelma, screamed, “For God’s sake, stop whining, you stupid cow, you brought this all on yourself.”

She’s a mean one, that Thelma.

Pink’s song, “Fuckin’ Perfect” popped into my head at one point in the day and Thelma was quick to assure me, “That song wasn’t written for you, dumb ass. Definitely not for you.”

Thelma even took to singing a song herself. It went something like this, “I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate myself.”

It was so ugly.

I got up that morning annoyed that it was morning. Then the girls woke up all of ten seconds after I got out of bed. They followed me into the bathroom, which is a large bathroom until you have three people in there, two of them trying very hard to irritate each other, and then suddenly, it’s a very small bathroom and the mother of the house is snapping, “Please stop! Just stop. Go down and find Daddy.”

They did go find him and that’s when I heard it, the dreaded sound of packing tape. I hate the sound of packing tape almost as much as I hated myself that Tuesday morning. The sound of packing tape means Tom will have a package he needs shipped, either from my place of employment or from the post office, which used to mean he would be taking care of it but in the past few weeks I have somehow become the post office currier and I hate this too. I hate that I have to leave work in the middle of the day to mail something for him so that he doesn’t have to drive a whole four miles from home to do it himself. I know he considers this ebay thing ‘our’ thing but it’s not. It is HIS thing and if I have to leave the house every damned day for work, he can ship his own damned packages.

We’ve had this conversation so many times and it appears I always lose. We both end up angry and that morning I was in such a shitty mood I didn’t trust myself to say anything, so I just picked up the box and took it with me because the anger inside me was already boiling, I didn’t need to stoke any anger inside Tom. I decided to just keep my ire internally focused. I figured I was just being a bitch anyway, so why feed into it.

The bad feelings continued throughout the day. I hate my hair. I hate my body. I hate my stupid clothes. I hate that I don’t like to exercise. I hate that I want to eat crap these days after being so good for so long.

When I got home, I felt marginally better. I mean, it was the end of the day, right? Except I was still pretty angry with the world.

I went through the motions of dinner and baths and books and then, something shifted. Olivia was lying across my lap, as she does most evenings. She had a couple of dolls in her hands and was being silly.

Alyssa was on the couch, within touching distance and we were all just relaxing. I think I started singing and at one point, Olivia stuck the head of her doll in my mouth.

It startled me and I laughed, “That’s one way to shut me up.”

She giggled and said, “Did I put my doll in your mouth? Tell Lyssie what I did.”

I told Alyssa what had happened and said drolly, “It was like chewing on a goat. Or at least what I imagine chewing on a goat would be like since I’ve never actually chew on a goat.”

Alyssa laughed. She laughed so hard she could barely speak. She did manage to ask, “Why on earth would you want to chew on a goat?”

I answered, “I wouldn’t. Which is why having that doll stuck in my mouth was so unpleasant.”

Again, this struck both girls as hilarious. And that moment, sitting with my beautiful, sweet, funny daughters, my day turned around.

Thelma finally shut up. She stopped telling me what a horrible person I am, how ugly and useless I am. Even Thelma, in that moment, so my worth. She saw me having a moment, a beautiful, memory-making moment with my girls and finally, Thelma agreed that there is something I can do well.

I can love my children like no one else can. That is my claim to fame. That is my talent. That is why I’m here on this earth, to love these girls, to remind them every single day that they are beautiful, they are smart, they are worthy of every good thing this world has to offer. And if they are all these things, why do I think I am not? They are part of me, the very best part, yes, but still a part of me. They are the beautiful, the good, the joyful parts of me.

Thelma hasn’t had much to say since Tuesday and I’m grateful. I know I need to find a way to shut her up before she even speaks. I’m working on that. Obviously, I’m still a work in progress even at the grand old age of 43. And that’s okay too, no matter what Thelma might have to say about it.

2 comments:

whosures said...

I've been having a lot of the "I hate my body" days as well. I love you!! You forgot to mention that you are a really good friend. You do that pretty well too. Tell Thelma I said to stuff it!

Tiffany said...

I hope your week got better!! Xoxo