Today was a bad day – a fucking bad day. There’s no way to make it seem like something
it is not. I’m not going to get out a
thesaurus or even spend a minute of my time trying to find a better word than “bad.” It sucked.
It fucking sucked. That’s not
eloquent, but that’s the straight truth.
I was afraid to get out of bed. I’ve been pushing shit aside, telling my
negativity to have a glass of shut the fuck up and silencing all my
doubts. I’ve been focusing on the
positives in my life, and repeating to myself that I am blessed and brilliant
no matter what. But, today the bastards
won. The fuckers screamed at me and
kicked me in the teeth and made damn sure I felt broken and battered.
And I refused to get out of bed when my husband tried
helping me. I say that “I” refused, but
it didn’t feel like it was me fighting him.
It was all my emotions fighting one another and this made me angry,
confused, and disoriented. This made me
announce that leaving the bed was terrifying and I could not, would not, do
it. He said, “But then you’re letting
them win. You can’t let them win.”
Who are they? The
bastards. The nay-sayers. For now, the
exact details are irrelevant because I know we all have “them” in our lives. The biggest issue is that today it wasn’t
just me fighting them. It was my anger,
fear, disappointment, all fighting me too, screaming for attention, “You can’t
shove us away! You can’t silence us! We have every right to be here! Look at what they did to you … again! Fuck
those fuckers! Let us shout!”
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| Thanks to Flourish in Progress for this image |
All the emotions, and their incessant bickering, exhausted
me. I did, however, agree to get out of
bed. I didn’t get dressed; I didn’t even
brush my hair or my teeth. But, I pulled
a hooded sweatshirt over my pajamas and put on a pair of socks and my purple
Converse One-Stars. I agreed to be
dropped off at my mother’s so that I would not be alone. I should not be left alone right now.
I plopped down upon the wooden stool at my mother’s kitchen counter
and rested my head on the laminate counter-top.
“Well, what is it now?” my mother
asked.
“You know,” I mumbled, not looking up at her while I spoke.
“Angela, they’re assholes.
You know that. There’s nothing
you can do. You have to learn to let it go.”
“I know; I know,” I repeated. I do know, but knowing what to do doesn’t
also make that thing easy. My mother
knows that smoking is damaging for her and harms others around her through
second-hand exposure, but she still finds it impossible to break this bad
habit. And I don’t just have a bad
habit; I have an illness – an illness that has undoubtedly been exacerbated by
unjust, unethical actions on the part of others.
“Well, what are you listening to?” she asked me.
I wasn’t sure what she meant by this.
My therapist had often talked to me about changing my “soundtrack.” Replace the soundtrack that says I’m
worthless and afraid with the soundtrack that says I’m beautiful and
brave. This is another thing easier said
than done, but my therapist is indeed another blessing in my life. One of the most brilliant things she ever
said to me in response to the actions of the bastards was “Well fuck.” She quickly followed this up with, “Oh. I’m
sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, but
that’s just despicable. Well, let’s help
you do some coping, and I’ll do the cursing for you.” She is perfect for me.
However, I had never discussed the “soundtrack” with my
mother, so that’s probably not what she was asking me. I was uncertain as to the direction of her
inquiry, so I barely muffled out an audible, “huh?”
“Well, are you listening to that shitty, depressing chic
music again? You know that stuff is
going to kill you.” When she says this,
she is most often referring to Tori Amos, although she has also blamed Sarah
McLachlan and Fiona Apple for my bouts of depression. She then continued, “You know
you need to listen to Rob Zombie when you’re depressed. Where’s that mix I made you? Rob Zombie clears the depression right up.”
Seriously – this is my mother. Her advice regarding my mental illness is to
rock out to “Dragula” and “Living Dead Girl.”
All the same, I love that woman so damn much. If you know her in real life, you just get it.
I admitted I wasn’t listening to Rob Zombie, and she said, “Well,”
like it was an “I told you so” and “no wonder” you’re not at work right now and
cut yourself yesterday.
My mother then went on to offer some relatively sane advice,
leaving Rob Zombie behind. She told me I
can’t become agitated so easily and I need to learn that not everything is
worth getting angry about. Pick your
battles and focus on the positive.
I ignored her advice, and went back to bed. Around 4 in the afternoon, I woke back up
because she said I had ten more minutes to sleep before she kicked my ass. I sat down on the couch and tried to distract
myself with juvenile game apps on my Kindle.
My father came home with the mail and my mother started
looking through it. She opened up
something from the dealership where my father had purchased his 2012 Ford
Fiesta last fall. A dollar fell out of
the envelope, and she was more excited than the occasion really called
for. “Oooh, they gave us a dollar,
John. All right, I’ll fill out this damn
survey for you, okay?”
I sat on the couch, blasting bubbles of the same color
together trying to make it to the next level.
Then, my mom’s voice became louder as she became increasingly agitated
with the survey before her. “Too many damn questions. Too many damn questions. Christ, how many more questions are there? What the hell?“
“Yeah, I got sent that survey online, and ignored it,” said
my father.
She then came to a question that stumped her, “John, what
kind of tires do you have on that car right now?”
“Hmm …. I don’t know,” he replied, while continuing to
scroll down Craig’s List on his lap top, looking for further vehicles to
purchase.
“No! Wrong answer!” she hollered back at him.
For the first time today, I then smiled. I don’t know why, but for some reason my mother’s
random ranting and illogical bitchiness is incredibly comforting to me. I started beaming and just listened in to
her, my anger and fears rolling off of me with every further curse and
complaint that my mother made.
“I am leaving them a note on the back of this survey: too
many fucking questions. This survey is
too time consuming and annoying. At
least they gave me a dollar, but that shit isn’t enough. I’ll add that too. If you expect me to fill out a survey with
this many damn questions, you need to send twenty dollars next time. Too many damn, dumb questions. Christ.
Stupid stuff. Stupid, stupid
stuff. “
Here my mother was, telling me earlier to basically “not
sweat the small stuff” and then having a total bitch fit about a random
automobile survey. However, her apparent
hypocrisy cracked me up. It was the best
thing I heard all day. My mother’s
bitching was so welcome and appreciated in that moment.
I don’t know what it was exactly that soothed me so much as
she damned the auto dealership. Maybe it
was that no one tried stopping her. My
father and I just let her rant on, and accepted her voice and
frustrations. No one told her that she
needed to get over it. No one told her
to look at her blessings. No one told
her to let go because she lacked control of the situation. We let her be a bitch. So fucking what? Who did it hurt? No one.
In fact, it strangely did me a world of good to listen to her ceaseless
complaints.
Maybe that’s all I need: to be allowed to be angry without
being told things will get better or God has a bigger purpose for me. I need to sit with that anger and own it
before I can fully release it. Maybe,
just maybe, that’s what this day was for.
And maybe my mom is just a bitch, but she made me smile on an otherwise extraordinarily
shitty day.
And now ... a little Rob Zombie to ensure you all have a wonderful day!
<3 Much love to all my friends and followers! <3
I love your mother. Tell her hello for me. :)
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