Undone

People are often shocked when I say I’m socially awkward. I think that’s because I feel awkward, but i”m not.

Also I don’t like people initially. I would say there is probably a 5% of the populace that I like on my first meeting them. Usually those people are the ones who aren’t trying too hard. Try not to take this offensively, the fact of the matter is, no matter what (nearly) you’ll grow on me, and I’ll love you loads and loads. Some people get a free pass into me liking them. I became their friend before I hit Puberty or you were a friend/girlfriend of one of my older siblings, and so you got a free pass into me liking you. The rest of you? Get to work!

I’ve been trying to piece together why specific people get on my nerves. First and foremost, I don’t like people who are strong. I like people who are awkward like me, or laid back casual, fun people.  People who have an “in your face” interface just BUG me. If what you say is God’s Law, you better get out of my way cause I tend to mimic the people I am around, and while I’m normally whatever, you best be prepared for me to get SASSAY. (Oh Geeze did I just write that. Oh. yes.) In any case. It’s true. If you are obstinate and rude and think you’re God’s gift to this fine world, then you’re about to get a reality check from me, I don’t care about you. And I can do with out. Thanks.

I highly don’t like being corrected. I don’t like people who are younger than me talking like they know more than I do. It may be fact, but I’m elderly and infirmed,  so be polite to your elders. If I say the sun circles around mars you best just plaster a smile on your face and say “Sure it does” and then snicker to your friends about how unhip I am. Also– FYI in case you didn’t get the 411, I don’t like being on the outside of stuff. It drives me mad when people get together and get into groups and I am, for whatever reason, naturally left on the outside. I sometimes don’t mind so much– but sometimes being out with people at a party or whatever is my only adult interaction– and I get annoyed when that’s taken away. Let’s face it. Don’t play a game that takes 6 people when you have 18 people at a party. Not nice! (I’m looking at you In laws. I didn’t want this to be rude, it’s coming across that way, so i figured I”d man up and just say it! haha.)

I’ve gotten kind of tired of reeling myself in on my blog posts. It felt unfulfilling and unnatural for a long time. I like writing as me. That last post– well it was AWESOME to write. It felt GOOD. And while I try to abstain from feeling marvelous, I am tired of just doing “oooh I’m such an awful mommy” posts. Good Lord. So I thought I’d let my brain walk on the wild side since my commends are just bursting with commentary and I just don’t know what to do with them all. I will have to purchase as second server! *le sigh*

I think that would require me purchasing the first one, wouldn’t it?

What was I saying again?

RIGHT awkward. I think this post is evidence of that. Some people would directly come out and say “Hey that bugs me” But even in blog form I wriggle around it like a fish, or a worm on a hook.

Huh. A lot of fishing references there.

Anyway. I am not direct. I am meandering, and I try to be as funny as I can until I get there, and then I break into tears because I feel like a horrible person. BUT — (OPRAH AHAH MOMENT HERE) I am not a horrible person because some things bother me. I think everyone has pet peeves (See previous post!) and maybe I have more than others, but everyone is different, and that’s what makes us special. I think that needs a new word. We can’t all be special. Some people are similar. It’s like having over 1 trillion character traits. You’ll find something in common with some people. Similarities, but no one is exactly the same. I’ll think on the word Idea.

I think My general problem is that I do think I’m a terrible person. Not like Godzilla terrible (OOH NO GOZILLA!) more like… a Hot mess. Like when you judge Britney spears for being a bad mom? That kind of terrible. Like people Judge me as terrible. Here’s a few of my terrible Secrets: I yell. A lot. Like I remember as a Kid that my dad yelled, and I thought it was terrifying. I yell like that. I remember as a teen thinking “Oh I don’t have a temper” but really I just didn’t care about anything. I care about too much now. Stuff matters. Like bills and clothing children and food and what not. It’s stressful stuff. Scott has the right attitude which is “It matters, but we’re not homeless, or about threadbare” (we so aren’t) “So just relax, things will be ok.” And it’s true. I just have some sort of hyper active… worry node in my brain. Do people have those? Worry nodes? I think I have 20. I will proudly admit that I have not hyperventilated since December (of 2010) and I’m dang proud of it. I don’t like to wear my anxiety as some sort of shame. I realize usually, about 10 min after my freak out, that I”m being ridiculous. I have checks in place now. Mostly that when I feel a freak out coming on, i ask scott to tell me I’ll be ok. I usually am. Occasionally. All the time.

I am however, Not freak out free, I had one like… 5 days ago? When I have no adult to keep me in check, I go BEZERKER and scream a bunch. It’s embarrassing in public. I wish like Mary Tyler Moore should do like a PSA on irrational rage bursts or something. {To be momentarily serious, My rages usually involve a lot of screaming, then taper off into crying, and then a small hate spiral… or large, for those who don’t know what a hate spiral is, I just repeat in my head how much I hate myself, and find reasons, in a big circle, or a little one. No violence except some child like foot stomping that usually hurts my foot. Seriousness over, for the moment} I’ll full on admit that I have Issues. I am like the poster girl for issues. I wish I could find a medication that I could shoot into my arm instead of a pill. Cause really — I can’t do pills. I’m Just… Too spazzy for pills. Too much! I forget them, and that just causes me to go off kilter and it kind of triggers the angry shame stuff I mentioned before. It’s like A) Take a pill and feel ok sometimes unless you forget to take it for a day, and then Go nuts and then start back up, etc etc.  or B) just try and not go nuts.  I prefer the second one.

Geeze. how did I get all blah about down stuff? Back to your regularly scheduled whackiness.

Mean while, I will keep Living my little cinderella life (Ie working/being a mom) and hope that someday my “prince” (not working) will come along 😉 someday!

Derringer Meryl [ Don’t you judge me!] Out

WARNING: HORRIBLY OFFENSIVE POST AHEAD:

You know what needs to go? People saying that mom’s just don’t get a day off from being moms. I call BULLSHIT (sorry for the swearing mom) I will full on agree that my mom has been pluggin’ at being a mom (and has worn other hats at the same time too) for nigh on 30 odd years. She gets tired, and i won’t lie and say she’s never asked for help or anything, but everyone deserves a hand…. and that’s what I’m saying. It’s bullshit that we say things like “that’s just how it is being a mom” NO. No it’s not. That’s how we let it be being a mom. It’s like women (myself included) enjoy being some sort of martyr or what not to the cause of perfect motherhood. BS!! *throws something against the wall* I am Meryl and I am here to stand proud and say it loud that I AM NOT PERFECT, and I like it that way. I don’t always make a home made dinner from oats that I rolled by hand that morning while watching the sunrise, or some such BS. If you can do that, great. FABULOUS. If you love doing that, EVEN MORE POWER TO YOU. But don’t get up in my face waving on and on about “How great” it is what you’re doing. It floats your boat. GOODY For you. It’s like going in front of a person who can’t walk, and tap dancing while singing a song about how fabulous your legs are. JERK. I am physically incapable of doing EVERYTHING right. It’s just not possible. (plugs her ears while someone reads something out of a conference talk or whatever) Yeah, that’s great. But until Elder whats his bucket is going to get down in the trenches and help me muck out my house, I think he can stuff it too.

You know what I do every day? I wake up, far too early for how late I stay up cleaning, go to work. I work for 8 hours with customers who can’t speak English and are upset that I don’t speak… Macedonian or whatever, and I explain to them SOMEONE else’s rules and regulations. It’s not my company. Not that I particularly disagree with anything, but in any case– NOT MY BUSINESS, I tell it like it is, I get them gone, I go on to the next person who wants me to speak Latvian. NO. I don’t. Whatever. I put up with people twisting my words, or just not understanding– pretty much all day, between that I get to deal with some fun co-workers, and not so fun co-workers. Overall, I hear the following in the back of my head “Wonder what the kids are doing? I bet the spilled something on the carpet. What fresh hell awaits you at home? Did they brush their teeth this morning? I bet they didn’t. Don’t forget to reschedule Kate’s appointment. You need to pay the electricity bill. Also you need to do two loads of laundry and mow the lawn on Saturday. I hope it doesn’t rain. I should call Scott. Maybe not, he’s probably sleeping. I should let him sleep. Poor guy doesn’t sleep enough. I hope he’s ok. Maybe I should call and make sure he’s not having a low. I should get him into a doctor already. Did I take my pills today? I can’t remember. What day is it again? Oh I owe so in so some money. I should make sure to pay them back when I see them next. When is our next dentists appointment. I should check out a roofer for our house. I can call them on my break, and set up appointments. I need to look into Loans, do we have enough equity in our house for an equity loan. I don’t think so…..” You get the Idea. that is about an hour of what plays through my head between short conversations with co-workers. I am strategizing and scheduling. I am balancing. ALWAYS. Then I come home, Something has been messed up. INEVITABLY. Not like a little mess. The days where there is a little mess, I’m ok. Whatever. Big messes, like ice cream spread around the kitchen,  laundry party thrown (IE, all clean and dirty laundry intermixed. whee) all the toys taken out, scattered, nail polish/crayon/sharpie on the walls, cake flour dusted through the house, missing children, inexplicable water/soda/juice messes, chalk rubbed into carpet, etc. I’ll admit that all of these don’t happen on one day, but usually at least one a day.

That being said, at least once a month, I Lose it. I don’t mean like stuff gets forgotten, bills go unpaid. But that inner dialogue usually spills into something more like “Why am I doing all of this? Didn’t I ask for some help? why didn’t it get done…” and then it escalates into angry Mommy, and usually someone gets screamed at, over something that would usually simply try my patience. I try to refrain from exploding. I really do. I can hear Sukie saying “You should just let it out when you feel angry, don’t bottle. Your family is full of bottlers” it’s true. We bottle. WE bottle well. Now if we only did it for something useful, Like peaches. Oh well. I should let my anger out, but typically, it tends to be so fleeting that it passes in the moment and I don’t realize that I’ve pushed it down and just decided to conquer the task on my own. I feel, quite frankly, a little bit like Daria’s high school History teacher meets the little red hen.

Seriously, this guy needs to relax. So do I. So when people take and say “oh mom’s don’t get a day off” all I can think is “A vein in my forehead just exploded!” and my face, I imagine, looks a little like this guy’s. Cause If I never get a day where I am not the person making things go, and getting this person to that place, and scheduling appointments and balancing house work and naggy customers, and one really OBNOXIOUS co-worker who doesn’t help out. I might go nuts. I seriously might have a break down. People think I”m over dramatic, but I’m not trying to be. I am trying to do the most that I can without A) looking like a total slacker and B) not going mental. I did work for the post office people. I”m not saying I’m down with guns and what not. Cause, honestly I’d probably shoot myself in the foot and it’d be so funny and… whatever, but I’m saying that I visualize every day, tackling some upper member of management’s back and just bashing their head against the ground.

I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

I also grasp that this is one of the very violent images that springs to mind, but I never act on. Thank God. I just… I don’t think people realize how much I’m doing. Mostly from my ADD. I am consistently doing more than it appears that I am doing. I am never, even while surfing online, doing nothing.
Maybe this is just dawning on me. Maybe this is how everyone is. If that’s the case, how is everyone NOT angry all the time? Oh…. maybe all the women (who aren’t deeply in love with the 1950’s and that mindset) are? Listen, I don’t mind the 1950’s, I’d like to clean house and have dinner ready for my husband when he gets home too. Except he gets home at weird hours… Whatever. I’d like to wear a puffy house dress and vaccuum with pearls on and accidentally drug my children with benedryl so that I can relax and watch some soaps, or something like that. The truth is, I squeeze every last drop of what I can do out of most days. (at least when I’m not super exhausted, haha) I stay up late doing chores I can’t do when the kids are awake. I never see my husband, because he’s at work when I’m at home and I’m at home when he’s at work. Let’s not kid ourselves. We all wish our lives were different. We all would love to win the lottery, for whatever reason.  Even the people who are most satisfied with their lives are wishing for something just a bit more. Does that make us greedy or ambitious? Probably a little of both. All I know is I could use a vacation. A long one. Preferably by myself. Hell. I’d like 10 minutes alone in the bathroom with no one pounding on the door asking what I’m doing. I’m waving the white flag, life. Can’t we all just get along?

Derringer Meryl [What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?] Out