Kicking and Screaming

Last night she woke up in a pool of pee at 2am and was wildly unhappy about it, hollering for "Mommy!" and "Daddy!" in turn. Exhausted but jarred awake, she punched Pynchon right in the face when he lifted her out of her wet bed. Uncomfortable and sticky, she kicked me hard and repeatedly as I stripped her out of her soaked pyjamas. She screamed imprecations, flailed in all directions, demanded snuggles while slapping faces, gripped our arms in desperation while kicking us violently in the groin.

For nearly an hour we struggled to get her back into bed.

Changing the sheets and changing her clothes were, comparatively, easy. The challenge was to ease her temper. And my temper. And Pynchon's temper. Because we are, it must be admitted, an angry family. Short on sleep, long on deadlines, discombulated by the dark, assaulted by lights and noise and blows, none of us are at our best. Finally, she heaved a great sigh and flopped her arms up above her head, tilted her chin towards the wall and consented to be tucked in, still muttering darkly. I returned to my bed. Pynchon reached out a reassuring hand and fell soundly asleep. I tossed and turned and considered, as is my wont.

What I've considered is this: My daughter's rage is my rage. She expresses what I wish I could, awake and angry about it, rage against the fruitless lonely dark. Rage that what she wants, she can't have.

I am, and have always been, quick to temper. My mom tells a story of my infancy aglow with my compliant behaviour, but some of my earliest memories are of frustration and annoyance, cornerstones of my relationship with the world. As I've matured, and particularly since, in these past four years, I've come into my grownup life, I find that I'm sublimating my anger in resentment, quiet bitterness, apathy, and cynicism.

I watch Munchkin rage, and while the violence and noise and frustration of her outbursts can provoke a like response in me, for her, its cleansing. She feels angry? She's rocking it: "Mom, no, I don't WANT and snuggle, I am very ANGRY right. now."

I don't do that. And I don't think I'm any less angry than I've ever been and I don't think I've made peace with the world. In fact, I'm annoyed / resentful / bitter a lot of the time, and I don't want to be.

A couple of weeks ago, on the long long weekend of Thanksgiving, full of visits and cooking and packing and international travel and worry, I snapped. Sleepless again at 6am on Thanksgiving Monday, I tossed off a cynical 'to hell with it' and left the house to stake out a seat for the 8:30 am parade. I put out our chairs in a modest arrangement to take the minimum required space. At 8:15, a women pushed one of my chairs out of the way and sat down in front of it. I freaked out. I told her off. I raised my voice. I called her a name. I wouldn't let it go. It was awful, mostly because that's not who I want to be and I lost control.

I don't know how to be angry anymore, about the right things--don't know how to do cleansing, honest, effective anger. So part of what I'm feeling when Munchkin screams and flails and lets rip? Is envy. Huh.