The Giant Pile of Grossness

Every time I've thought, hoped, and prayed that Princess would one day be healed, that's what I focused on: the "being healed" part. The end result. Abra-cadabra, voila, you are healed.

Sadly, that is not the way it is working out. Apparently.

I mean, I was right: there is Being Broken, and there is Being Healed. Unfortunately, I'm finding out there is also this giant pile of grossness in between called HealING. Emphases on ING. That being, clearly on the way, but not healed yet. Dr. Sl warned us about it; he said things would seem like they were getting worse while they were getting better. But I believe all I heard was lalalalalalalalala getting better.

I don't know what I was thinking, really. Maybe that she'd start to make baby steps toward being whole and we'd all rejoice and enjoy this newly-emerged part of her and then she'd plateau for a while and then make another step and we'd rejoice and

Not so much.

It's more like how you've got that one child (or husband) who just does not value neatness and organization all that much so every now and then you dig under their bed and pull away the blanket they used to try to hide it and find a pile of rotting mush and ground up dessication that haunts your nightmares for months afterward.

Yeah. Kind of like that.

So what's happened is that Princess has not really raged significantly in six weeks. Which has never happened before. Maybe once, when she was five. I think there was a good summer once. So YAY!!!! right?

Only.

Only there was something underneath that blanket.

She doesn't rage much anymore and YAY for that, really, but it has been replaced by Oscar the Grouch, only without the lovable gruffness. Your breath stinks! Don't breathe near me! I hate you! You hate me! You're always mean to me! It's mean to mention my butt crack is hanging out and I might want to fix it! It's mean to tell me you'd want me to tell you if your butt crack was hanging out! Laughing at me is mean! Get out of my room and go cook dinner or something! Stop laughing- it's mean to laugh! How could you laugh at your little daughter? I hate you Peanut; shut up! I hate you Cuddle Bear; shut up! I AM!!! I'm COMING!!! I DID!!! Eighty times two IS 79! You don't know cuz you're not me! You don't get this! You don't know how to do math! I don't want to! No! I'm going to kill you, Peanut!*

Typing this does not do it justice, because there is, as my husband tactfully puts it, no I'm Going To Rip Off Your Head and S___ Down Your Throat font.

Now add to this base line of grouchiness an event like, oh, I don't know, let's say....theoretically of course....Princess miscalculated how little homework she could turn in and still earn the class incentive for the quarter and landed two points short, so is not invited to watch a movie in the gym Thursday, and the Pile of Grossness gets more Giant.

Princess has this rubbermaid box to put her laundry in, with a lid that is supposed to stay CLOSED. CLOSED! I say. Ever since points were tallied (I now realize), she has not closed the box. Every time she comes downstairs after changing, I tell her to close the box. Every time she tells me she did. Every time she did not. One time, I brought the box to her. She yelled at me for being mean, closed it, picked it up, and grouched loudly all the way up the stairs about how I made her have more work. This morning she came down and I told her to close the box and she said she did and I said, "great! Now ACTUALLY go close it!" and she went. I went in her room later to deposit some laundry and THANK HEAVENS it was closed, because I had this moment where I understood those women that get on the news: "how could she! How could she actually get in her car, drive to school, excuse herself to the teacher for interrupting, and throw a Rubbermaid box at her daughter's head! A monster!

I had the rages down. I had them down cold. I could handle a rage like no one's business. Now I feel like I'm some slimy fish grabbed out of a polluted pond and thrown into another. The new pond's water isn't quite as foul and murky, but I was used to my old pond! I could do it, right? Maybe not for much longer, but I had it under control, right? This new cleaner pond sucks!

So now I need to go fish my Big Girl Panties out of the old pond and wear them again. Maybe I'll embroider something new on the butt.

How's that for a mixed metaphor for you?






*Taken from actual monologue, all within the last eighteen hours