Good Days

Some days are good days for no attributable reason. Today was one of them. (For which I am deeply grateful!) I woke up late, which was a bad thing, and couldn't get Kid-2 out of bed. Kid-1 didn't want to get up but did under duress and Kid-3 and Kid-4 were already bouncing off the walls. The rest of the school routine morning went smoothly. Then I went back to bed, for the second day in a row, just to spite Hubby. (What a wicked thing to do! But it made me feel better - for no apparent reason. Not sure what that makes me but there it is.) When the MIL called at 1130 I was sound asleep and dreaming a VERY bizarre and now unremembered dream. (It had Danny Glover in it as an unintentional bad guy. What's THAT all about?!) She asked me if I was sleeping and, as I had taken a few very deep breaths to wake up before answering the phone, I told her, "No but I wish..." She found that amusing and went on to ramble about something I also can't remember. Whatever it was, it the first conversation with her in weeks that hasn't led to an immense guilt trip so for that I was very grateful as well. Since I wasn't really tired when I laid back down in the first place, I got up.

At this point I had no real emotional attachment to the day. It was a day and it had gone up and down like everything in my life. (Is that how everyone's life is? It's either all the way up or all the way down and they balance each other out but rarely does something feel "kinda good" or "a little bad" --- or am I just being melodramatic again?)

So I prop myself up in my hole. (This is the place on the couch beside the bookshelf where I like to hide out and handle anything that can be tackled without getting up. Yes, I'm lazy. That's why I'm fat. Get over it. *wink*) With everything properly spread out around me, I dig into my massive pile of backlogged writer's group work. And I did pretty darned good actually. I got caught up and no one yelled at me today! YAY for no yelling! I moved into another project on the computer (kids' chore charts - ICK) and gradually picked up children seemingly at random over the course of an hour and a half.

Well, once everyone was home, they found it necessary to assume their kid-roles. Kid-1 bossed everyone around while getting furious at Kid-4 for ratting him out on not doing his share. Kid-2 got sulky and sarcastic when she didn't get to do what she wanted. Kid-3 found cause to either escalate the fights or pretend to be invisible. And Kid-4 was all wrapped up in being the snitch, even when he started getting the same punishment (or worse) as whoever he ratted out. And the fights got louder and louder and eventually turned into name-calling then degenerated into a fist fight, several times.

By the time Hubby got home, I was snippy and cranky and wondering if the ground was too wet for digging shallow graves. Things got worse as he found fault with everything we had done and bit people's head's off for things we didn't get done. There's no point in calling him on this behavior, even gently, even away from the kids, even after he's no longer in that mood/mode. It just makes it worse PLUS he gets royally pissed at me for it. So I just dodged him and kept the kids out of his way. He was much better after he ate so I went out for my usual Tuesday night Starbucks.

Now, I have been given a list of things that I have to talk to the shrink about. Because, obviously, the shrink knows what I can and can't handle and I am completely incapable of judging such things. (Yes that was sarcasm dripping off my words like September honey...) But, being the dutiful wife/daughter-in-law/friend/daughter that I am, I made my list. I have a massive list of things on it now because I added the things that *I* want to talk about. (Imagine that, putting MY things on the list for MY therapy sessions! The nerve of me!!)

One thing that has become more and more obvious lately: I am not okay. Who I am is wrong and I need to change. Now, I've done this before so I know the drill. It took me 3 years last time but I was doing it on my own so I am hoping to speed up the process this time. I will become who they want me to be, which, paradoxically, is NOT who they want me to be.

Your head spinning yet? Mine is. So off to bed I go, feeling both confident and hopeless at the massive changes that need to take place and rather confused at how this day feels like a good day when very few "good" things happened.