From my own observations, it would appear that I am turning back into the uber bitch that I was a few months ago. I have no patience and I don’t know why; where the little bit ran off to, the little bit that I got back probably only about a month or so ago, I wish I knew. But I just can’t keep my temper under any type of decent control these days. I yelled at Emily this morning because she got mad that I wouldn’t let her run around in the grass before we got in the car; we were already running late, I told her no once, I had to pick her up to put her into the car/get her off the lawn and I yelled once we were in the car because she was pitching a fit. She’s a toddler, fits happen constantly but yet I couldn’t hold my tongue and I yelled and then felt guilty and horrible for doing it just moments after the fact. Yesterday it was because I took away her crayons. She threw one at my head, after I told her two or three times to not do it. I think it was an attention getting act but it doesn’t matter why – she did it and I told her if she did the crayons would be taken away. Well that caused the end of the world to come, now didn’t it? When she wouldn’t stop whining, I yelled. Did it do anything at all for either of us? No. Well, nothing positive. I’m fairly certain that it made the tantrum last longer which really wasn’t the result I was looking for when I raised my voice. When did I become a mean mommy??
Augh, I hate myself like this. I really do. I had started to get myself back – I was able to laugh and smile and let some things roll off my back again like I was able to do before all the shit hit the fan – but now that ability seems to have left the building and is nowhere in sight. I hate when I get upset for no reason at all and then, moments later, I realize that I lost my stuff and yelled or got snippy over something stupid and then I feel guilty; this morning I felt like such a horrible mom (and still feel like one over an hour later). Like the toddler tantrum; she’s going to tantrum when she can’t get her way and I know this. I should have given my typical speech (in a lower and not so mean tone), “I’m sorry you’re upset but you can’t go and play in the grass because we have to go to school. Mommy told you we had to get in the car and that we needed to go to the car and get off the grass. You didn’t do that so I picked you up.” And just let her cry/whine it out until she was done. But my insane control freak kicked into high gear and went nuts – I yelled to get her to stop crying, which never works but that’s why I did it. I got so frustrated, so fast, that I just yelled because I felt like I had to in order to gain control. That’s what happens when, even if I don’t know it, I feel like my life is out of control. Which, apparently, I do right now. She’s gone, there’s nothing I can do about it; no matter how angry I am or how sad I am, I can’t bring my mom back. I’m sad and I can’t change it; my mom is dead and I can’t change it. My dad is sad and cries all the time and I can’t fix it for him. I just want everyone to be okay again and we’re not, and I can’t change it. I hate that I can’t change it. It’s my job to come in, figure out what needs to get done and then do it so everyone else can be okay and worry only about themselves while I do all the work and all the worrying for the whole bunch. It’s what I do. No one, to my knowledge, except for maybe Rob and at least one of my closest friends worries about me. I’m independent and reliable and they know that they can lean on me; I don’t lean on anyone. I’ve always been like this for as long as I can remember. I don’t know if it’s just who I am or if it’s who I was raised to be. But I wish I could. I wish I could just go home and cry on his shoulder or call up a friend and cry but that’s just not who I am. I’m trying to get better at it and not choke back the tears when he says something that just makes me want to turn into a human fountain. But usually I cry alone – in the car, in my office (although I try to avoid that whenever I can), in front of her grave. I’m sure that I seem aloof or standoffish these days, and it’s only because I’m just so sad and I’m stuck in my head alone, trying to sort out how to get through all of this. I know that I will, I always do, but it’s just a matter of how and when.
There’s this part of me that, after seeing her name up on that wall on Saturday, feels like she died all over again. A part of me is in total denial (although, does it count as denial since I’m admitting that I’m in denial? Huh….), and seeing her name and her birth/death years just makes it real. Seeing the numbers there, under her name, brought me right back to the day I stood there with my family and watched them wrap up the coffin and put it in the crypt – or drawer, as she affectionately called it. Her name being up there makes it permanent, for lack of a better word. Real. Visual. Affirmed. Official. She’s really in there, I didn’t just imagine it all, it didn’t happen to someone else. That’s my mom’s grave where her body is. I don’t know if other people experience this when their loved one’s grave is marked by a headstone or some other marker; it’s like now, there’s no way to ignore it and there’s no way to deny it. It happened, she’s gone and what you’ve got left – in my case – is a slab of marble in a great big, empty hall to talk to and to cry to. And the memories of a time when you had so much more than that. It all happened so fast and I wasn’t ready for it to happen when it did or how it did – yet another stab to my control freak core. I sat by and watched, trying to control what I could and trying desperately to handle all that was going on around me that was totally out of my control. And here I am, yet again, feeling like there’s so much out of my control and so very little under it that I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes but just sit and cry.
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