Feeling Put Upon

The Saturday of Labor Day weekend, Olivia woke up around 8am. She then talked at me for the next hour and a half while I lay dosing, trying to ignore her need to get up and go.

I finally dragged my lazy carcass out of bed at 9:30 but I certainly didn’t want to. The day went downhill from there.

I’d mentioned to Tom earlier in the week that I was going to paint the bathroom.

That morning he asked me what color. I told him. Then he asked me what color I wanted to paint the front door. See, I’d mentioned that to him earlier in the week too.

I hemmed and hawed on answering that one because I didn’t really care to hear his opinion on my thoughts. Dude has an opinion on everything. EVERYTHING. And see, the thing is, his opinions are always so strong. It’s never, eh, I don’t mind that. It’s always a sure and confidents yes or no.

It’s infuriating.

Except that morning all his opinions did was make me weepy.

I did tell him that it wasn’t him, it was me. I didn’t know why but my emotions were very close to the surface and those emotions were all sunshine and roses. They were teary and sad and angry emotions.

We made it to my mom’s house without any actual tears falling, though things were cloudy on the way.

Tom called me on our way to town to tell me that he didn’t actually care what color I chose to paint the front door.

That was nice.

See, once upon a time, very early in our marriage, I painted our laundry room a bright apple green.

He hated it. He hated it so much that he can’t imagine me NOT picking another horrible color for any part of our house.

But guess what? I learned from that. I don’t go all willy-nilly with my paint colors anymore. See my previous post about the nice cool white I picked for the bathroom.

So give the green a freaking rest, is what I’m saying. It’s been at least fifteen years since I did that. I’m not a bright eyed 35 year old with apples in her eyes and confidence in her choices anymore.

Whew, it feels good to get that out.

We made it to Menards and headed to the paint department. Let me tell you, the Saturday of Labor Day weekend is not the time to go to Menards. When we arrived, there were three carts available for use by the front door. The rest were scattered about the store, in use by the seventy million other customers.

My mom pointed down an aisle in the paint section and said, “The Rustoleum is at the end.”

I started down the aisle but couldn’t see the stupid Rustoleum and stopped halfway. I didn’t quite stomp my foot but I did give out a plaintive, “Where am I going?”

Yes, it was incredibly whiny. Yes, I hated myself so much in that moment. But I was so tired and felt so put upon by the entire world.

My girls are so amazing. They both just rolled with my stupid whiny mood. They laughed at me as I behaved like a brat. They didn’t take my bitchiness personally (I hope) and they just let me wallow in my mood.

We went to lunch, which helped because hello Applebee’s chicken fajita roll and strawberry lemonade.

Walmart was the worst but by then I’d expected just that and so I made my way through the store with as much stoicism as I could and finally, at home, I was done.

There was no paint prep that Saturday. There was very little laundry done. I did not vacuum.

Tom left to go…somewhere that afternoon. Alyssa went out with N and so Liv and I had noodles for dinner. It was comforting and just what we needed.

The next day, I was back to fine. I felt god enough, emotionally and physically to paint the bathroom and do laundry and cook so I’m calling that weekend a wash.