A Mother's Guilt

It started yesterday morning when I dropped my kid off at school and suddenly took notice of his walk. Not his hips or his legs, but his feet. He has this light and bouncy step, and in the 10 seconds I waited for the crossing guard, and watched Jamis reach line-up, I mourned the fact that I hadn't noticed this before. He's 6. Had his gait suddenly changed? When had I stopped scrutinizing the little details of my children, not just to keep track, but for the enjoyment of it?

What I was most guilty about was the fact that Jamis was in a particularly grumpy mood when he hopped out of the van, but he was still naturally inclined to a springy step. His attitude surely would have matched his footing if I hadn't snapped at him for no reason just moments earlier. He had asked a simple answer, one requiring either a *yes* or a *no* with no extraneous explaining required. A rarity, really, a question like that. But I was too bothered to even answer nicely. NO! I barked.

And he probably would have been more vivacious if we hadn't walked him through a thousand instructions since the moment he woke up, my husband and I just exhausted from the repetition and growing continually irritated and curt with every inhale, exhale, inhale.....exhale....

So the guilt was there. The anger was rising.

And then I arrived at work to a bunch of technical glitches and shit that really wasn't my problem. But I'm the only one with the wherewithal to figure it out and fix it. Two hours later I finally sit at my own desk to do my OWN work. Not that I'm jumping for joy over that, but my blood was just boiling from having to reconfigure computers and network issues and shit THAT I SO DON'T GET PAID TO DO. Call the tech guy people. Call the tech guy.

(I actually had a dream that my incredibly wealthy boss left a crinkled 5 spot on my desk - compensation for being the in-house techie. Thanks Mr. Millionaire. Not sure if that's better or worse than a simple *thank you*)

And now I've just really got the grumps and I'm flooded with negative thoughts and emotions from every angle. I'm feeling so guilty. And with this guilt comes an overwhelming anger. Rage that is not directed at anyone, (as it was here) but just is. Almost worse, sometimes, to be that way. To have no focus.

And this is what happened in my brain (in no particular order) during that very long moment between yesterday's drop-off and my consumption just moments ago of a fire-roasted veggie sandwich:

• Guilt: About Jamis and the silly question he asked
• Guilt: About forgetting to notice the little things
• Guilt: About Dan, and my bad mood/attitude toward him for No GOOD Reason
• Anger: That I'm giving my husband a reason to bitch that women are impossible sometimes, cuz really? all I ever want to say to that is *f-you* But I can't today
• Guilt: That I don't do enough for the kids. Don't take them out enough. They watch too much TV. I don't honestly enjoy enough of the time I spend with them.
• Guilt and Sadness: FOR SELF: I have an attic full of clothes I could wear if I just had some discipline to lose these last pounds. But I don't. I finish the kids' Mac N Cheese, I eat the M&M cookies with them, I skip breakfast and lunch and snack every afternoon right alongside the boys. I never make time to run. I used to run, really run. It was beautiful and made me feel beautiful. My present inertia is just so, so ugly.
• Guilt: Over the anger. Over the sadness. Because things are really pretty good overall and I should really just consider shutting the fuck up.
  
• Guilt: Over not just trying to find solutions = find happiness.
• Guilt: Over my job. I have so much work and I don't do enough and I can't make a commitment to save my life even though my boss has been nothing but lenient about my often-occurrence of just Not Showing Up.
• Anger: Over paying the bills, always having to turn off the lights, lock the doors, and get the nighttime bottle. Or at the very least, asking *other half* to take care of all these things. But I swear I exert just as much energy in the instructing as the doing, so why bother?
• Anger: Over knowing that I'm the only one who knows what's for dinner and I DON'T EVEN KNOW. Right now it's only 2 people asking, but soon enough it will be 4, and I think I just may be making dinner plans with window treatment lady if we happen to ever speak. She seems like a gal who'd like to go out - often.

And while I feel that's not a good resting spot, it's where I stop. I ate my veggie sandwich, drank my raspberry tea, and I feel revived. The food? The time away from little people and big messes? Not sure. Don't care. At least the greater part of the anger has dissipated. I'll forever feel pangs of guilt, but I hope it never becomes me.

I know that I will never be everything, but I hope I can always be enough. For myself. For my husband. For our kids. It is for this family that I breathe and eat and sleep. But it certainly doesn't mean I'm always smiling, and that's just okay.

I know that I will never be everything, but I'm sure that I can always be enough. For all of us.