9:00 p.m. - 2006-02-08
A more perfect resolution
Have you ever done something that in your mind was so horrible you couldn't admit to it out loud? I'm not turning on the melodrama here. I just need you to understand what a Type A, obsessive-compulsive, intense perfectionist I am. Then maybe someone can forgive me and I can maybe try to be a little more objective.
I'm not speaking in riddles on purpose. I'm stalling for time, trying to figure out the best, most eloquent way to phrase this so that I don't sound like a total nut job.
Tonight I fucked up. I mean I really, really fucked up. I yelled at Chloe so badly that I honestly scared her. She broke out in a grown-up like sweat. My baby is only eight years old and due to some trivial missed homework and her tendency to talk back I went ballistic. I said "goddamn" in front of her too.
I hate airing dirty laundry. I want so badly to be perfect, or at least perceived in that light that my deepest and darkest end up getting pushed way, waaay in the back of my closet. Past the leg warmers and my Led Zeppelin t-shirt. Where the light will never find it. Expose it.
I am afraid I verbally abused my child. She screamed at me that I hate her and I screamed back that I DID right this minute! I REMEMBER hearing this as a child. Those words cut deep and they never, ever heal. I sit here and I cry and I wonder if I truly am becoming my mother. My mother with the warm, laughing brown eyes. Eyes that could shine with love or madness, take your pick of any given moment. How many times can I recall her screaming at me, and how many times can I recall her tiptoeing into my room, after the lights were out to tell me, "Momma loves you Angie. You're a good girl and Momma just lost her temper." Exactly the same as I did tonight.
I don't, can't, won't be that person. I just fucking can't do that to another human being, much less the one I love so deeply.
There are no apologies I can offer my daughter, I've said them all tonight. All I can do is try to strengthen my resolution not to lose my temper again. I wonder if this was as hard for Momma as it is for me.
I have worked so hard for these past eight years to raise a little girl with a strong sense of self-love and a high level of self-confidence. I don't want to tear down what Bill and I so carefully wrought with a few stupid, fucking careless angry words. Words said when I was tired or maybe depressed. Words directed in anger toward one of the brightest things in my life.
Oh god I'm being so fucking melodramatic. Please accept my deepest apologies for this entry.
I just want so badly to be fucking perfect for Chloe's sake. Baking cookies, June Cleaver and pearls and all. The shame I feel in admitting that I'm not is almost more than I can stand.
Again, my sincere apologies for the drama. No matter how tortured and angst driven the mother, the child is fine and happy and snug in her bed. With any luck she won't remember this at all when I'm paying for her therapy 25 years from now.
Goodnight.
