It isn’t them, it’s me (dummy)
I saw a moment a woman interviewed the other day who was talking about her experience of feeling fear and lost after she lost over a hundred pounds. While she’s expected that she would feel more like herself with the pounds shed, what she was left with was the raw truth: it was not being fat that was making her unhappy, it was being lost to herself.
Similarly, I assumed that I would be less sharp with my kids at bedtime when I was finally getting an uninterrupted night of sleep. Not true. I’ve had 3 blissful night of not having to get up (still waking and hearing my darling son, but not being called to duty) and yet the dark voice in me creeps out. What’s worse she’s increasingly holding a grudge. If I raise my voice after dinner, my annoyance with the kids will linger until they’re in bed. That means there is no peace in the night routine because naturally they push boundaries and I am called to respond.
I’m thinking of responding playfully, I coach myself to drop the dark voice. But she’s still the dominant one. I have a break from bedtime for a couple of nights, and my daytime mothering is more patient and playful. So I get a break from feeling like bad-mommy and the kids get a shift too. Maybe by the weekend our dance will have changed again.
Right, he’ll be waking up again, so I’ll have something else to blame? Won’t work again. It’s just me and the voice.