My Triggers, the Remix

I am exhausted. I’m in the second week of a three-week travel-palooza. I feel like I didn’t really get much time to come off of an intense vacation—seriously I LOVED it, but it was physically a lot and I have hardly had a chance to really process the fact that I checked off one of my biggest bucket list items. I’m still overwhelmed by the trip.

But there’s no time to really do all of that because I’m too busy being overwhelmed by work and home life.

That means I’m tired. I’m cranky. I’m prone to whipping myself into a crazy frenzy over ridiculous stuff. My communication skills are presenting a bit dull, and sometimes I can’t moderate my emotional responses.

So EVERYTHING is triggering me. EVERYTHING! It’s kind of like that time about a year ago.

Yesterday, while grocery shopping and mentally making a list of the chores I would ask Hope to do during the day, I managed to work myself into a lather over some dumb ish she did while I was away the previous few days. I managed to revisit my thoughts on teen laziness and narcissism, the fact that she seemed to really take advantage of things while I was gone.

I totally forgot about how well she communicated with me while I was gone. I totally forgot how stressed Hope gets when I am gone. I didn’t think about how much more anxious she is about school when I’m on business travel. I didn’t think about Hope actually at all.

I thought about how RIGHT I was!

I mean seriously, do I have to do everything?

Yes, yes I do.

And when I brought the groceries home, I immediately called Hope and demanded that she get pen and paper and write down the list of to do items I dictated. Before I knew it, I was making some unrelated point about school, future responsibilities and veiled threats about spending money for the upcoming band trip.

I lost my ish.

And I distinctly remember the moment that Hope went to her “this ish is cray” place. I lost eye contact as I practically yelled that I wasn’t mad—though everything about me indicated that I was totally pissed. Her face went blank and she stopped jotting down the things dictated from my ridiculous list.

My pinnacle of crazy? Taking the laptop until all chores were done, preferably by 4pm.

Now, first, if my daughter’s life relied on a speedy response to anything she would not be here in the land of the living. Secondly, the list was a failure set up. And finally? I was a complete nut-job, mom-beeotch; especially when my daughter insisted that there were no dishes to wash after I had washed two sink fulls and there were STILL dishes to do.

Being human is so overrated. I’m tired and stressed and I actually don’t want to be so easily triggered or wound up, but yeah, here we are.

I apologized to Hope. I was bad, and I regretted it. Then I let her be, and I got back to the tasks that would hopefully help me get on top of my workload. I know that I’ll have a breakthru this weekend; I just need it to hurry up and get here.

I also need to lay in my bed for a few days, but alas, that won’t be happening for a while.