#500wordsaday: I Want Out

1) A time you lied
2) A time you were hurt
3) The last time you were happy for a week straight
4) Family
5) How you wish you started your day (and then why you aren’t doing that already)
6) Your most authentic moment
7) When you really loved yourself
8) When you were scared
9) Why you long for love
10) Something about you that you’re hoping people don’t notice   / Something about you that you’re hoping people do notice

500 Words a Day: How You Started Your Day

I started every day this past week with the harsh realization that I want out. Like, tag me the fuck out please. I don't want anything to do with the nastiness taking place in this scenario, nothing to to with the insanity or the meanness or the cruelness surrounding it all.

I. Want. Out.

I. Am. Out.

People, when you have a child, you do not get to drop them on their ass because you're tired of parenting! You don't get to just toss someone on their ass. You do not get to decide not to be someone's support, not to be someone's network, not to be someone's family. Family is (supposed to be) forever, not just for the good days!! You don't get to peace out on someone when you're mad.

THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS!

I woke up and started every day this week in a bad mood, after tossing and turning all night the night before. I didn't sleep, I had nightmares in the few moments I did drift to sleep, and I woke up grumpy, running late, and not at all in the mood to...well...to do anything, actually. I wanted to stay in bed and be gloomy, but at the same time, I wanted to figure out why all I could process was anger. I was literally seeing red. Rage-induced blindness, for days and days, without an end in sight.

Every morning, the messages were in my inbox when I woke up, after falling asleep every night, phone in hand, Facebook messenger app open.

You have 26 new messages.

You have 43 new messages.

You have 91 new messages.

You have 64 new messages.

Every morning I read them, while brushing my teeth and blending my smoothie, and every morning by the time I got to my office, I was ferociously angry again.

Why? Why am I letting this get to me? It's not about me, it's not happening to me, it's not anything I can fix or control or help or make better. It just is something that, is.

And yet, every day I woke up and like clock work, read these messages, got mad, went to work and continued to feel mad, and then went home, mad. I ate dinner mad and went to bed mad. For like six straight days. Finally on Friday, I clocked out a few hours early and found myself pacing in my living room, needing to do something, needing to just...GO.

And so I went.

I got in the car, connected my Pandora, grabbed some crackers and a bottle of water at 7-11, and sped off into the sunset. I had intended to drive until I felt better; to drive until I could take one full deep breath without the weight of someone's shoe on my chest. Until I could inhale and exhale five times without my eyes welling up with tears, I would just continue to drive.

Once on the road, things aligned a bit better, and instead of driving into thin air without destination, I found myself driving to the Dairy Queen waaaaaay out Highway 26 past Banks, where I met my favorite little kiddo and his mom for an ice cream cone. They were actually headed to the coast for the night, so I went ahead and followed them out, joined them for dinner, had a fire on the beach, and then drove home in the middle of the night - I remember when I used to make that late-night drive all summer long in my early twenties.

I found myself much calmer and far more centered when I woke up Saturday at 10am, after sleepily falling into bed when I got home at 3:00 in the morning. My bed full of sand, hair reeking of stale campfire, still a full face of makeup and my tee shirt from the night prior. I had 21 new messages in my messenger app, but I didn't rush to read them. Instead I lounged in sandy sheets for as long as Juno would wait for breakfast (about 43 seconds), then took a long hot shower, drank a smoothie, and was halfway through my day before I sat down to scroll through them. It wasn't that I no longer cared; I just didn't want to be so mad about a situation I have no control over.

I wanted to start my day level-headed, not seething with red hot anger.
I wanted to start my day calm, cool, and ready for my day, not running late to get to work while practically throwing my phone at a wall.
I wanted to start my day like I always do, not like I was this week.

I can't fix this. Truth is, no one involved can fix it. This, to me, feels like a true end, a conclusion there is no coming back from, the end of things as I know them. But I want to start my days like normal. I want to start my days waking up from a restful night, go to work, and enjoy my days. That doesn't seem that difficult, right?

I'm willing myself to start my days the way I want to - not by reading messages I'm not ready to deal with. I want to start every day on a good note. And in the times like this, where icy rage surrounds me, I want to start every day on a good note. I want my days to start with my music turned up as I shower and get ready, and with a breakfast smoothie on my way out the door to work. And on the days that can't start like that - the days where cruel recaps of awful messages flood my inbox - I just want to remember that I can't get so mad, at the things I have no control over.

Or, if that doesn't work, I just want to remember that I can end a week with a late-night drive, a loud sunny drive to the beach or the mountain with the music blaring, and a quiet, dark drive home late in the evening.