It is 8:53 AM on a Thursday. Over a plate of scrambled eggs, which are vile, squishy and pale, I decide my marriage is failing. Due in large part to my inadequate marriage, my children are also performing at a disappointing rate of awfulness. Or amazing rate of awfulness, depending on how you look at it. I don’t know how to parent them and am confident they will wind up as delinquents.

No. More like hardened criminals.

I wonder how I will manage to visit them all during family weekends since they’ll definitely be in different penitentiaries. I’ll have to force myself to communicate with their dad who will likely be living in New Mexico with his new wife, Bambi, who cheers for the local community college in whatever New Mexico town they’re living in. I hate her hair. We’ll have to divide and conquer which kids we see each weekend. I’m sure Bambi will complain about having to take them money for good jail food. I am sure it will cut into her Aqua Net budget. I really hope at least two of the kids are in the Southwest during their imprisonment so he’ll take ownership of their visits.

I look around my home and determine I despise it. I want to rid all of its contents into a giant Dipsy Dumpster, forgoing my usual spirit of giving away an item or two to the local church-run thrift store. Why bother donating when I can simply trash everything at once? No one would want this junk anyway. I simultaneously want to clean every square inch of my floors and light the couches on fire. Which should I do first?

Over the egg plate and prison visit schedule, I am contemplating a yoga class but know that my rambling mind would scream at me from within the silence of the room. I left the house in a mess. I didn’t actually clean those disgusting, dog hair covered floors before I left. Now the kids will come home from school to a disaster of a home and they’ll grow up thinking it’s perfectly suitable to live in filth. Did I remember to turn the stove off after I ate those pale, squishy eggs? Now that I’m on the topic of eggs, we need more. Did I make a grocery list? Has anyone else noticed the kids eat 87 boxes of granola bars each week but the single bag of carrots is missing only two baby carrots? Are they getting enough Vitamin A? How are their eyes? When did I last have an eye exam? I need new glasses because the super glue holding the left arm is bound to give out at any minute. Probably during yoga, creating noise and chaos and leaving me blind during my downward dog. 

It is over this plate of eggs, while I analyze the state of my failing marriage, failed parenting, disaster of a home, empty cupboards, inability to focus in yoga and my general lack of empathy, energy, compassion and kindness that I realize………I’ve been had.

By hormones.

I won’t go so far as to say I’ve always been what one might call rational when hormonally charged (my mother could likely do her own blog series on my teen years) but I was definitely more rational than I am in my current mid-life state. The swings are wide and the emotions run deep during this phase of life.

So. Deep.

In one single-second span I can cry over a picture of my fuzzy headed babe when he was just starting to cut teeth and then growl at the same child for spilling milk on the dinner table. I can weep with gratitude over the blessing of a warm home, packed fridge and full closets at 2:01 PM. By 2:03 PM I am cursing the contents of my cabinets and screaming that I have not one ingredient for any meal worth making! We will all surely starve. Then back to weeping over the fact that we have food to eat when so many children are actually starving.

The truth- it’s likely to get worse before better. Way worse. My ladies in their forties know what I’m talking about. So, short of moving solo to an island, I need to examine my options:

• Moving solo to an island. Listen, it might not be the best option but it’s still an option and we’re analyzing all our options in this post. This choice leaves me free to breathe and perform yoga without worrying if my glasses fall off.  There are probably no eggs so I won’t be disgusted by their vileness. However, I would likely miss my distasteful decor and grumpy, pre-criminal kids. I’m guessing this option is not the best for my particular state of craze.

• Prayer. Much less costly and detached than my island option. I firmly believe in the power of prayer. However, when I’m at my peak hormone crazy, my prayers go something like Lord, help me not to have homicidal thoughts about everyone I encounter today. I know I should feel grateful but I’m pretty ungrateful right now…..but ‘thanks’ because I know I should be thankful. Forgive me for not being more thankful. And for being homicidal. Because I know you very much love the people whose heads I just imagined ripping off. Forgive me for that vision, too, Lord. Please forgive me for thinking it again ten more times today. Regardless of my lack of effectiveness, I need to keep in mind that God knows ours hearts (which is actually kind of scary…..) and that he can shift around my ingratitude and irritability and replace it with perspective and compassion. Who says we don’t still see miracles in this day and age?!?!

• Friends. I have never needed my sister and sister friends more. I need reminders that it isn’t wise to smother my spouse. Reminders that my kids are likely normal and unlikely to land in juvi just yet. I need reminders they also experience mood shifts that compel them to race across town for a Quarter Pounder and then find themselves crying in the drive thru lane when they hear Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors because it reminds them of their fifth grade crush who broke their heart. Find some authentic friends and leak your crazy out on them. Slowly.

• Time. The absolute in this entire mess is time eventually solves a lot of the issue for us. Hormone levels smooth out and the man whose mere breathing caused you to silently plot his death once again becomes your favorite guy. Or the kids who are on the fast track to Sing Sing sing your favorite song song from The Sound of Music and you’re convinced they have greater chance of becoming a family band than a family of criminals. So if nothing else eases your mind, remember that the tick of the clock means you’re one step closer to sanity……

Or menopause.

But that’s another blog post series entirely.

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