Why is it that there are days when I feel incredibly swaths of peace and great gifts of flexibility—and then there are others when I am really unfit for public consumption? Even after all these years and all the lessons parenting and family life have offered me, I still have days when I am not exactly sure what I am doing here!
It is a strange thing to feel basically content, and still get downright crabby and not even fully understand why. It isn’t like the realities of my daily life change all that much from day to day or week to week. Why is that I can step over the same pile of soccer cleats and muddy sneakers day after day and then one day it sets me off and I feel my skin tighten and my teeth clench? I slip in that puddle of water on the bathroom floor one day too many, or pour out the last drop of milk from a nearly-empty jug just as I have a thousand times and this day it sets me off?
I don’t know if it is something I ate, or didn’t eat, accumulation, some strange vibe or those dreaded hormones (I hate blaming my behavior on hormones, it always feels like a cop out)—but I am not always the cheery, humor-infested maternal unit I like to think I am. Some days, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I wonder if I could possibly get any crabbier? Or have I finally reached my threshold or the max?
The one thing I believe is that it really isn’t anyone else who is MAKING me crabby—not my children, or family life or the rambunctious cats—there are just those days when some internal shift causes the onset of the grumps. Maybe it really is just a matter of waking up on the wrong side of the bed?
Also: There is Nothing Like a Child to Remind You that You Don’t Know it All
Will They Ever Be Responsible Enough for My Taste?