I’m done! I’m tapping out! I cry uncle. I can’t even pinpoint the straw that dropped me to my knees, but some days I just wonder why I’m so weak. Why does everything feel so heavy? How is the shortest month of the year so unbearably long?
After returning from a beautiful family vacation in sunny Florida to one of the coldest nights in New York with a -20 below wind chill factor, I found the rest and relaxation only a cruel joke as I delved back into business as usual.
My dishwasher is too cold to work. Ah, that must have been the straw. I envision breaking every dish in my house in a giant display of “NO!” I’ll make picket signs and march around my broken dishes shouting “DISHES MUST BE BANNED…. I WILL NOT WASH BY HAND!”
As I sit on the floor surrounded by unmatched socks, I just cringe at a society that even implies a sock should match. If I had a magic genie I would use one wish to make those socks come alive and then I would choke them back into lifelessness.
I sweep the floor and think “just be grateful you don’t have a dirt floor” and then it occurs to me a dirt floor wouldn’t need sweeping. Gratefulness doesn’t come to me this day.
The crayon covered walls of my house are reaching out and choking the life out of me. They hold my soul hostage and laugh at me as I longingly look out a snow covered window.
Uncle, Uncle, UNCLE! I just can’t take it, make it stop…take me away, is it May yet? What? It’s still today? Oh how will I survive? What’s that I hear? A cough? A sniffle? Oh Lord, it’s a sick child! Say it isn’t so. This day will never end, this night will echo it’s despair in every miserable cry of sick children. Someone just threw up on me….Oh uncle, Uncle UNCLE, make it stop.
A text from the husband “Hope your day is going well.” Oh how sweet of him. “HIM” that man who comes home hungry every day. What will I feed “HIM” today. How can he be so thin and eat so much? Why am I getting fatter by the second? Oh how I hate “HIM”, and his not fatness and his need to eat. How dare he text me that he hopes I’m having a good day. Why on earth would I be having a good day. He’s just patronizing me. I’m gonna feed him a punch in the face today, a big giant punch in the skinny face. A punch that is slathered in untold resentment and unleashed anger. I hope he tells me he’s tired because he only slept 7 hours last night, because I swear if he does, I’m just going to leave him….but not until AFTER I punch him in that handsome, perfect, little face of his.
“Mommy, will you sit with me?” The sweet and quiet voice of my sick son and his little hand reaching for mine. “Of course, honey” I answer as I sit down next to him, and my younger son climbs on my lap, gives me a quick look and a giggle. They love to sit on Mommy. I’m so blessed…what’s this on my lap sitting next to my three year old? Oh, my new Winter fat roll…how lovely. Ugh, my socks don’t match, I really hate unmatching socks, but I refuse to match them damnit, because I’m not a 1940’s housewife. It’s my silent rebellion. Why not let my disgusting bathroom be my silent rebellion and just match my damn socks?
My youngest starts grinding his teeth. Oh, I need to do something about that. My oldest asks for a graham cracker. Does he even eat food? He just eats eatable nonsense, I’m doing a horrible job.
The phone rings, I ignore it and someone leaves a voicemail. The thought of having to check my voicemail is overwhelming. Does this couch have a back door?
End Winter…..END!
Disclaimer: This writer loves her husband and may have embellished her misery for your reading pleasure.
