My baby is a kid now.

Today my handsome kiddo started 5th grade.

Fifth.Grade.

This doesn't seem possible, and it's making me sad in a way that his 10th birthday didn't.  Turning 10 was fine!  It meant I had done a decent job of taking care of him for a decade.  Plus he's able to enjoy more stuff that I enjoy along with me, and who doesn't long for that bonding experience once you get through the monotonous inanity of the toddler years?  We watch Firefly together, and discuss Dr. Who.  We read books together that I loved as a kid (and still love now, if we're being honest).  We can play better games, and he can kick my butt at Mario Kart.  (not cool kid.  not cool at all.)  He not only understands sarcasm now, he uses it.  Awesome!  This is all great stuff!  Kiddo also gets bonus points for understanding that poop is just about the funniest joke going.

But fifth grade?  Man that's a bummer.

Fifth is the grade where my elementary school memories start to come out of the fog.  Some of them are great, and I'm still at least casually in contact with a decent amount of my fifth grade class.  We went on awesome field trips, we still had recess, and we were the oldest kids in the school.  Still, I wasn't really happy then.  I remember feeling isolated from both my peers and my family.  For me, fifth grade was the year that I truly remember having a life that I started to keep to myself.  I stopped sharing so much with my family, and damned if I could tell you why.  The angst and self esteem issues I worked through from late elementary until high school really could have been mitigated if I hadn't done that.  So I'm scared.  These are the things that I don't want for my kiddo. Not yet.  I know that it's a freight train that's already heading down the tracks, but man I want to set up as many road blocks for it as I can.  So I'm gonna shove my heart into any door I sense closing, and do my best to be exactly the mom that my Kiddo needs.

Stay cool little dude, just not too cool for me.

Overheard

"How do you spell Belgium?  And that's in France, right?"

"Before I came to Jesus I was really REALLY racist."

Hulk SMASH!

Lately I've been dealing with more and more people who have reached an almost absurd level of anger.  Not the stinging, bitey anger that I can diffuse, but the balls-to-the-wall anger that there is no defense against.  Agree with these folks?  It enrages them!  Push back?  Lord have mercy, I am being sued and sworn at!  Present a logical resolution?  They roar in the face of logic (before they punch logic right in it's sensible face)!  In fact, as far as I can tell, all that they want is to be angry.  Which makes me wonder, why?  What do we gain from shoving through life stomping on toes and spitting on the smiles of the innocent? 

I know though.  It's not just that letting anger smash through you and out into the world is so exhilarating. There's more.  Anger is just to tiring.  It's exhausting.  Just being angry makes me shake and sweat.  Being really super extra HULK SMASH mad feels a bit like the flu.  My muscles twitch and ache, sweat rolls off of me like a river, a rage fever burns and the heat waves make vision go wobbly, then my brain gets in on the action and starts to hammer on my skull looking for an escape. Anger gets in my joints, and my guts.  It takes over everything about me, and letting that go would feel sooooooooooo gooooooood.  Letting it go would be such a relief.  Things would be thrown!   Irrational insults and demands made!   Other people would literally suffer my wrath!

SUFFER!   MY!   WRATH!

And then what?  Does Bruce Banner ever come back too, and look pleased?  Does he ever hop back up in his tattered pants and skip off for an ice cream?  No.  He doesn't.  And neither do I.  Because just like the people I'm thrown into contact with, I am mean when I'm angry, and I don't like being mean.  I know that I don't want to hurt people, so I work, and work hard, at controlling myself when I get angry.  Sometimes that means taking time to calm down, and think about things rationally.  It also means I can typically get things resolved without hurting other people, and I'm more likely to get them resolved in a way that makes me happy.  Plus, I think it saves some strain on my heart.

So relax folks, take a breather.  You won't have an many entertaining stories, but you will have a happier life.

Hello Weekend!

It's amazing the change that one hour can make.  A short drive home, a greasy bag of popcorn shoved into my face, and some solid bitching time in with my baby.  Life is good now.  My brain is at peace, and I am set to chill.

First

This night air tonight feels like my past.  That bittersweet tang of freedom about to be lost, while summer still has it's fingers tangled in your hair.  All I want to do is find a grassy spot, tip myself back on it, and watch the stars spin around me.  I certainly didn't want to turn around and walk back into the cool slick and hum of the office, and try to run with "Business As Usual".  Still I did it.  Every pay check now is one more hedge against panic.  One more little Dutch boy finger in a leak; a little more time purchased while I convince myself that I have not wasted my time, and I am not failing my family.  While I know that these things are not true, and the logical core of my brain tells me that, I can't help feeling it.  The anxiety that used to sneak up on me occasionally has now moved in.  It carved out a hollow spot under my solar plexus, and set up shop.  A meth lab like operation that messes with my heart rate, makes me shake, makes me sweat, makes me cold, makes me cry.  So I have to buckle down.  I am lucky in so many ways, and I cannot let self pity and fear suck me down.