I no longer wonder what a meltdown feels like. I know. It’s indescribable, but I am going to attempt to describe it anyway. For the past month I’ve been getting emails every day or so from my dad warning me that my dear, sweet, never hurt a fly, always loving everybody, Grandpa was dying. Most of my family lives several states away from where I do. I’ve been pretty frantic, and trying to figure out some way for me to go. Last Tuesday Southwest Airlines was having a last minute sale on flights there so I called my Mother-in-Law to see if she would take care of the kids for a few days so I could go and be with my family. My ex is still working in California so I didn’t even bother to ask him. She said no. She said, “What can you really do there anyway?” and I didn’t push it because that’s me. I never stand up for what I really need. I will kick and scream for my kids, but never for me. She said she had decided at the last minute that she and my father in law were going to San Diego to soak up the beach for a few days. They need a break from their oh so difficult (insert sarcastic tone here) life. I wanted to go home on Saturday. Grandpa died Sunday morning at 6:35 a.m. I would have been there. I would have gotten to say goodbye. I would have gotten to cry and mourn with people who really understood the loss because they knew him. Instead, I am alone. That hurts.
Sunday morning, Mother’s Day, I awoke to a child tapping on my face at 6am to ask me to open a jar for her. I checked my phone and saw my Dad had called at 5. I called him back and got the news. No time to cry, though. Gotta get up, get going to church because if I just lay in bed and drool all day the kids will pester me to death and destroy our home. So, we went to church. Then brunch. Brunch was amazing and totally worth the one hour wait in line. To die for. While I was waiting in line I started getting really irritated that I had messaged my ex when I got the news and he hadn’t responded yet. It had been five hours! So I sent him another text:
Are you going to say anything to me about Grandpa dying? Or about me giving you three children? WTF?
He responded:
Chill, I just woke up.
Nice. Sorry to interrupt your peaceful slumber. Poor you.
Later that evening I went on his Facebook page and saw a picture of some lovely roses some girl had posted, with a message thanking him for the Mother’s Day flowers. For the record, this girl was the ONLY Mother that got something from him this year. Not his birth mom, not his adopted mom (my MIL), not the mother of his children, just “Deanna”. Poor Deanna, she has no idea what she’s getting herself into. So, in summation, Mother’s Day was difficult.
Then came yesterday. Yesterday was just impossible. The air was too hot, the kids too loud, the television like fingernails on a chalkboard. My ex told me him dating a girl four months into our separation was none of my business, nor was him leaving the kids with his mom for five hours last weekend so he could go out with her. When they only see him maybe three days a month, a five hour date is none of my business. I stewed in my anxiety, misery, and confusion all day. What was he doing? The “rule” is that you don’t start dating somebody until you are divorced, isn’t it? My Aspie side was in a constant state of turmoil. And then it happened. I can’t tell you what exactly triggered it, but one minute I was bringing the kids home from the pool, planning showers and dinner, and the next minute I was screaming like a raving lunatic. I didn’t hit, push, or spank but the girls later told me I sounded like the Incredible Hulk, or something out of a “horror show”. I screamed and cried and wailed and railed because the house was a disaster, they ate waffles on the coffee table….how could they? The “rule” is food at the table!!! The “rule” is no TV before school so WHY would you even eat there anyway, unless you were watching TV? The “rule” is dirty clothes go in the hamper and trash in the trash can! This has been common sense since day one, why, oh why, oh why is our house such a mess? There are three of them and one of me, why should I have to follow these little slobs around all day long picking up the flotsam they discard with no thought or care? And if I don’t, I have to live in a shithole. Until I pop.
I was so angry, I was so yucky inside. I wanted to stop, but I absolutely couldn’t. I was powerless before the waves of rage and anger and sadness. I screamed out every single rule they had broken that day. I demanded to know what I had to do to them to get them to understand and clean up after themselves. I made them clean up their room, screaming when I saw my six year old just piling trash into a toy box. I screamed when I left the room for a minute and came back and they were sitting motionless. I screamed at them to move, pick up, get going…and they cried. I saw their tears and hurt even more, which made me even more angry. Why should I hurt? Why do I have to hurt and be mean to them just so we can have a home not covered in trash and filth? The whole episode lasted maybe 20 minutes, and then I sat down on the bed and it all drained away. I was spent, I felt nothing. No anger, no sadness, no life, nothing. I sat and stared while the kids orbited around me. I felt like I had taken a big dose of Valium, but I hadn’t taken anything. For the rest of the night I was agitated and easily stimulated. I shut myself in my room and let my ten year old be in charge for a while. I came back out and cried with the girls about my Grandpa. I hugged them and kissed them and tucked them into bed, all the while wondering why God gave them to me. Why they had to be given a Mother who was so powerless over her emotions. They deserve better.
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