Polarized
I'm getting a little sick and tired of multi-tasking. I even multi-task when thinking these thoughts. On the one hand, I lash out with complaints, why is everything always so frenzied?! On the other hand, I chastise myself for not being more grateful, it's frenzied because you asked for all this! Right now I'm simultaneously trying to relax and write. This is consistent with my attempts at writing for the past several weeks, which is why I've basically puked over everything I've posted here since January. I don't want to stop writing, but I know I need to fool my brain into thinking I've had "down time" so I don't end up in a straightjacket with drool running down my chin. So I prop myself up on the couch with the laptop, turn on the T.V., and proceed to feel frustrated about how the deafening commercials are distracting me from my attempts at writing. Relaxing, yes! This is a brilliant solution!
I'm constantly on the edge of either falling into an exhausted coma or exploding into some kind of irrational, psychotic tantrum; I'm like a narcoleptic rabid dog. I didn't think the kids had noticed, but last weekend during Quinn's nap, he hid under Hannah's bed, which is across the house from his bedroom, where I assumed he would stay and from where I ran frantically shrieking his name after I glanced upstairs and noticed his door was open. There was no possible way he could have passed by my sentry post on the living room couch without my seeing or hearing him, and so my first reaction was more of anger and frustration, but after I'd checked every known upstairs hiding place, my exhaustion and rabies took over. I was running through all the possible scenarios in my stress-addled mind, and here is what I narrowed them down to:
1.) The alien abduction stories really are true, and now I'd have a horrible explanation for the mysterious unchanging birthmark on the bottom of his right foot (a beacon to our future overlords, of course).
2.) Someone had made their way into our house and was holding my three-year-old hostage in the attic. They were terrified by my shrieking, which was why they hadn't demanded any payment yet.
3.) Quinn was always only a figment of my imagination. Maybe everyone was!
In this sorry state, slamming doors, ripping curtains out of my way, probably foaming at the mouth, a flash of brilliance came to me and I yelled, "Quinn, say, 'what mom?'!"
Quinn is sneaky. He is manipulative. He is apparently a champion hider. But he is a sucker for words, and so my flash of brilliance was immediately rewarded with a muffled, amused, dusty "What, Mom?"
I bolted toward the sound, "WHERE ARE YOU??? I'VE BEEN CALLING YOU! YOU COME WHEN YOU'RE CALLED! AAAAAAAAAGRGHGHGHRGGHGHGG!!!"
Silence.
"Hmm," I thought. "He seems to be, what's the word, afraid? What kid would be afraid of a narcoleptic rabid dog? Uh. Oh yeah." Once I stood still and the stress volcanoes stopped spewing deadly lava all over every living thing in my path, Quinn crawled, giggling, out from under Hannah's bed - a place I never would have checked.
There is nothing really "bad" among the list of things on which I'm blaming the stress volcanoes -- in fact, everything causing my head to spin simultaneously in eight directions is all good. I'm busy at work because I have a good job; I'm busy at home because my kids are healthy and they like to spend time with me, and because we found a house we love and there are countless things to do before we jump into an eternal pit of debt (weeee!). The winter blues are being replaced by moving plans, arrangements for business travel to places I'm happy to see for the first time, trips to the thawed, breezy parks with the kids, birthday celebrations, and, after discovering I'm capable of both holding a book and walking on an inclined treadmill, actual reading! I just wish I had more time to enjoy each one of these things at a time, rather than witnessing the full range of experience like a fast-forwarded movie, or feeling like I'm trying to shovel in too much food all at once, dessert and dinner together, the clashing but delicious tastes of each trying to ruin the other one for me.
I'm constantly on the edge of either falling into an exhausted coma or exploding into some kind of irrational, psychotic tantrum; I'm like a narcoleptic rabid dog. I didn't think the kids had noticed, but last weekend during Quinn's nap, he hid under Hannah's bed, which is across the house from his bedroom, where I assumed he would stay and from where I ran frantically shrieking his name after I glanced upstairs and noticed his door was open. There was no possible way he could have passed by my sentry post on the living room couch without my seeing or hearing him, and so my first reaction was more of anger and frustration, but after I'd checked every known upstairs hiding place, my exhaustion and rabies took over. I was running through all the possible scenarios in my stress-addled mind, and here is what I narrowed them down to:
1.) The alien abduction stories really are true, and now I'd have a horrible explanation for the mysterious unchanging birthmark on the bottom of his right foot (a beacon to our future overlords, of course).
2.) Someone had made their way into our house and was holding my three-year-old hostage in the attic. They were terrified by my shrieking, which was why they hadn't demanded any payment yet.
3.) Quinn was always only a figment of my imagination. Maybe everyone was!
In this sorry state, slamming doors, ripping curtains out of my way, probably foaming at the mouth, a flash of brilliance came to me and I yelled, "Quinn, say, 'what mom?'!"
Quinn is sneaky. He is manipulative. He is apparently a champion hider. But he is a sucker for words, and so my flash of brilliance was immediately rewarded with a muffled, amused, dusty "What, Mom?"
I bolted toward the sound, "WHERE ARE YOU??? I'VE BEEN CALLING YOU! YOU COME WHEN YOU'RE CALLED! AAAAAAAAAGRGHGHGHRGGHGHGG!!!"
Silence.
"Hmm," I thought. "He seems to be, what's the word, afraid? What kid would be afraid of a narcoleptic rabid dog? Uh. Oh yeah." Once I stood still and the stress volcanoes stopped spewing deadly lava all over every living thing in my path, Quinn crawled, giggling, out from under Hannah's bed - a place I never would have checked.
There is nothing really "bad" among the list of things on which I'm blaming the stress volcanoes -- in fact, everything causing my head to spin simultaneously in eight directions is all good. I'm busy at work because I have a good job; I'm busy at home because my kids are healthy and they like to spend time with me, and because we found a house we love and there are countless things to do before we jump into an eternal pit of debt (weeee!). The winter blues are being replaced by moving plans, arrangements for business travel to places I'm happy to see for the first time, trips to the thawed, breezy parks with the kids, birthday celebrations, and, after discovering I'm capable of both holding a book and walking on an inclined treadmill, actual reading! I just wish I had more time to enjoy each one of these things at a time, rather than witnessing the full range of experience like a fast-forwarded movie, or feeling like I'm trying to shovel in too much food all at once, dessert and dinner together, the clashing but delicious tastes of each trying to ruin the other one for me.
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