I was unprepared for the early blooms on our Magnolia trees in March. The fresh pink petals were a welcome sign to me. An invitation to enjoy life. But the blooms withered so quickly I hardly had time to remember Spring.My tomatoes are already ripening and I've enjoyed a few right off the vine. What used to signal the end of an Indian Summer now foreshadows my unpreparedness for Back to School. I try to remember to inhale the soiled vegetable smell before washing my hands, but most times I forget.
To be honest, I haven't been enjoying life lately. The nagging comes too quick. The PC rages to life too early. My punctuality is a death sentence. I refuse to breathe deep. I am caught in an asthmatic reaction to life and I begin to yell.
And, to make matters worse I am not sure what the cure is. I think I hit my tipping point last Fall. Nannying a small boy, starting full time work, trying to shore up my not so little bundle of joy for kindergarten, hardly ever seeing my husband, getting a puppy and being a full time taxi driver were just a few of the issues I was dealing with.
Overwhelming anger, anxiety, loneliness and the fear that someone would find out how unhappy I was made my breathe stay shallow and the yelling began.
Yes, I yell at my kids. I have been yelling since November. I haven't stopped. Ever so often I see the parting in the clouds, I make amends, I tell myself tomorrow will be better, but it's not.
My not so little bundle of joy crafted a stick fort last summer in our backyard. I refused to take it down all winter for it was my lifeline back to a time when I was more light. But one day I took it apart, stored all the huge sticks (logs) behind our outside toy box. I forgot about Summer and fell into the doldrums of the blah-ness that happens between the summers.
The other day my little bundle of joy was building an inside fort with her friends. I was totally in to it and was helping with blankets and chairs and books...but the ceiling was too low though and I had an excellent idea. I went out to the backyard and brought in those sticks I had saved and we worked together to prop up the blanket ceilings. My not so little bundle of joy was amazed.
I was amazed too, it was one of those cloud parting type of feelings. I do have these - and the sad part is that they do happen often. I just cannot figure out how to hold on to these feelings of joy, spontaneity and love. I quickly dive down deep again into my own feelings of self doubt.
And I continue to yell. Don't think I'm an awful Mom. My kids like to argue ALOT with each other and it drives me insane. Also, neither of them feel like listening when it is time to depart the house and more often than not we are late - hurrying them out the door is a feat unto itself. Also, my kids have perfected the disrespectful eye roll and cannot stop negotiating with me about punishments. So I continue to yell.
It is an abysmal trait that I wish could be stripped from me. Being that this yelling is such a recent phenomena, I keep hoping that it will just wither away - but I don't think I am that lucky.
Honesty, in spite of my weakness, seems to be the only cure. I have a problem. I cannot remember how to slow down my crazy thoughts and these thoughts sometimes spiral out of control and then I am yelling. I feel powerless before the yelling and I feel powerless after the yelling.
I wish the Magnolia blooms would bloom all year and that my tomatoes would stay ripe on the vine long enough for me to enjoy more than a few weeks of their tastiness. I wish that stick forts with my lovely children would be enough of a reminder. These reminders to live lightly, with intentionality unfortunately do not stick around long enough and I digress into new feelings of inadequacy when one of these reminders decides rears it's pretty head.
Self doubt, powerlessness and inadequacy. A new perspective is in dire need. I've gone through my catalog of past perspectives and although true at the time, these will do me no good tonight. The gift of an unhappy ending; living within my faults. Having to clean myself of these faults, I am determined to move on, living authentically however with more loving intention.