Growing Up

You think you are a good person, and then you get married. It’s impossible to be your best self every single day, and the cracks start to show. It becomes harder to let things go, and the history starts to pile up and haunt every argument. You stop finding fights about socks on the floor funny, even two days later. You abuse the notion of unconditional love, and you’re moodier, bitchier and pettier than you’d ever be to your friends. But he still loves you, because he took those vows and everything, and so it becomes even harder to stop letting it all hang out. How is it that the person you love the most gets the ugliest parts of you? You resolve to do better, to be better, because that’s what he deserves. But it’s more than you’ve ever had to be.

Then you become a mom. And now two lives rise and fall according to your moods. There’s this little person waiting to be shaped by you and the example you set. I noticed that the days I come home feeling rotten are my hardest, most tantrum-y days with Muffin. I’m sure she picks up on my vibe, that somehow she knows what I really want to do is sack on the couch and numb my mind with TV instead of playing with her.

Frustration is close to the surface too often. When it breaks through, I look to the people closest to me to assign blame. I figure out the silliest reasons to be mad. I’m remarkably petty. I don’t walk the walk of the person I’d like to be a lot of the time.

In the words of Jack Nicholson, Muffin and the Canuck make me want to be a better person. I need to be, because there's so much at stake. I hope I have it in me.