What I hate

I hate mornings. Despise them. Dread them. So much so that night time has taken on a whole new meaning... it's the precursor to doom. Time to self-medicate. A lot.

It all started when my daughter's anxiety blossomed in 6th grade. I blamed a teacher, we blamed life issues - but in the end, it's a little chemical mishap that wreaks havoc on her brain, willy nilly. Only, I can see it, I can FEEL it as it's happening, and it makes me ill. She won't get out of bed. She won't unlock the bathroom door. She flings herself in front of my car while I'm trying to drive away, having left her at school.

I've spent the last 14 months trying to manage this particular chaos again. But how do you manage chaos? I get constant lectures about being too soft on her, how I have to MAKE her go, drag her there, force her back to school. A school at which she does not take single core class (choir, teachers aid, study hall...why do we bother?) and where she's got more failing grades than passing ones. Why are we here?

On top of this lovely morning drama, I now have to find and pay for classes online for her to make up the failing grades. In my copious spare time. Out of my oh-so-expandable budget. And there's paperwork. And cajoling someone to get out of bed, eat, take her pills and get her butt in a pair of jeans. I have to put on my emotional armor just to get up in the morning. I lose a big chunk of myself. I miss me.

As I sit here, she is arguing with me, telling me what a horrible person I am, that I'm mean, that I don't understand. The one thing I really do understand is that most other people don't have to go through this on a daily basis with their kids. They get them up, they yell at them to get dressed, eat toast, brush teeth and off they go. Shit. It's a "why me" moment with a very bad conclusion.

Because.

I am not infinitely patient. I am not forever doing the right thing, saying the right thing, being the right thing. I try. It's all I got. I fail more often than not. I still set the old alarm and crawl out of bed the next day to start all over again. And the counselor says parenting isn't supposed to be easy. I'd like to see him react to a 15 year old flinging themselves in front of a moving vehicle. One that he just happens to be driving.

So what constitutes success in a mess like this? She's out of bed. Dressed. Angry and flinging foul remarks and hared at me at every turn. And I just sit here typing on my keyboard. Just like yesterday, when I had her drawing my silhouette while I worked. She was trying to capture something, she said. I have a feeling it was the nice mom she used to know, who seems to be awol at the moment. Not feeling nice.

And yet I'll do it again - tomorrow and the next day and the next day. One thing that would probably be helpful is some actual help, but that is in short supply. It makes me want a cookie and a blanket and a nap that lasts 3 weeks.

Which brings us to the whole point of this exercises... I'm going to Seattle on the 1st. Come hell, high water, plagues of locusts. I'm going to see Jen. I'm not missing this again (4 reschedules, damn it) for everyone else and what they want and need. I'm not just a mom, I'm also a woman and a person and those parts of me are so neglected, it's time to repair some of the hurt. A little love from a gemini that owns a piece of my heart is just what the doctor ordered. There's a Corona and a girlfrid who knows my secrets waiting.

Now, while I wait to see if she locks herself in the bathroom, I'm off to check train schedules, buy myself a ticket north. You'll probably hear the laughter all the way down I5 as I sneak away...