One-Sided Momma: The Not Grumpy List

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

The Not Grumpy List

While getting kids ready for bed last night Grayson said to me, "Mommy, you've been grumpy since Bahrain."

Like I was the one who went.

Sad thing is he's right. I have been grumpy since Bahrain. Combination of two things: massive quantities of imbalance and ineffective self-care habits. Working on both.

What's ironic is that a friend whose husband is deployed is now reaching the halfway mark and has hit the wall. It's the same wall as when you run a marathon, only the cement that fills your legs fills your mind too and you are left chipping away at ossifying brain matter before it dries up, cast hard forever. She said she is scarred. I understand that feeling so well. You can be scarred by it all. You can have post traumatic stress. You may not heal entirely from it. While "being left behind" or working through a deployment is certainly not the worst thing in the world, it is draining and difficult to recover from if you don't make every effort to do so.

All that sounds dramatic but as I wrote her back (pleading with her to take every single shortcut available in effort to make her life easier), part of me was surprised to see how viscerally and easily it all comes rushing back. Part of me is still not quite over it and I'm not sure I will ever be the same mom/person/wife ever again. Maybe that's how it's just supposed to go down.

I will try though. I will fight to bring back the old fun me. If for no other reason, I don't want my children to remember me as the mean one (disciplinarian), the tired one (Want to take a nap, kids?), and the grumpy one
(I SAID STOP DOING THAT THING YOU'RE DOING THAT IS MAKING YOUR SISTER CRY!) as they grow up.

So in light of last night's revelation, I give to you things I am not grumpy about: