Superbowl Weekend and the Poetry of Anger

It was a full and busy weekend.

We left Saturday morning and drove down to my mom's house. We arrived around 4 o'clock, maybe a little earlier, I'm not exactly sure. I spent a little time with my sister and her boyfriend, Ryan, who was working on my mother's car. After we'd gotten Trever, Ryan and the kiddos seated at the table and fed, my sister, mom and I went out to Bonefish Grill for dinner. #Girlsnight.

We had a nice time, the waiter was a tad on the flirtatious side, we all ordered bang bang shrimp and I got a chocolate creme brulee for dessert. It was super yum. I only wish we could have gotten a booth rather than a table; it seems to me booths are much more exclusive and comfy and tables are so much less so. As it was, my mom and sister insisted I used the word "vagina" MUCH too loudly and scared the poor man seated behind me.

My sister dating is new and different and while I am happy for her and found myself grinning often over the weekend at them, I also found it a little annoying to have to share her. I don't see her very often and I felt like she ditched me to go make out in the back of my mom's car and that is SO something a seventeen year old would do, not a thirty something. But at the same time she's high and happy and he's her drug and vice versa and I totally get it, so I am holding off on saying anything critical at all and just being blissfully happy for them.

He's totally her type, he is sweet and gentle and soft spoken and extremely geeky. He loves video games and poring for hours on his phone at funny memes, he has a decent sense of humor and strikes me as a humble soul. Pretty much exactly like my sister. He's not into sports and I'm sure my highly competitive, trash talking family scared him just a little as we watched the Superbowl. (Go PATS!!)

She posted a picture on Facebook yesterday of a bouquet of flowers he got her, and I smiled in spite of myself. She's happy and that makes me happy.

I also realized I cuss too much. I am fairly sure I traumatized my mom, and she does NOT approve of me using such colorful language, especially so frequently, especially when any of my kids are present. It's understandable, of course. Growing up, I rarely heard my parents use that kind of language. Being in a Christian home, that was a general no-no. My mom even unfriended someone she knew on Facebook because the woman swears like a sailor. I'm not concerned she will unfriend me because she loves me unconditionally, but she was alarmed, to put it nicely.

I didn't use to cuss, hardly ever anyway. I'm not sure why the number of profanities in my day to day dialect has increased so sharply over the past year or so, but I'm betting a good part of it is that I have been more frustrated, stressed and angry over the past year than ever before. Some people think cuss words are a sorry excuse for a person with a limited vocabulary, but this is not true. I have a gigantic vocabulary, and I tend to say EXACTLY what I mean to, and sometimes cuss words are really pretty precise for me.

I feel like I should be more ashamed of this, but I'm really not.

Christians believe that what comes out of your mouth is directly correlated to what is in your heart. I will be the first to admit I have a ton of junk in there. I just do. I'm also verbose in nature, so it's bound to come rolling out at one point or another. I'm not saying this is GOOD, necessarily; I am saying it's honest.

Perhaps the closer you get in your pilgrimage towards God, the less you need or use those kinds of words. I can say that at the times in my life where I was super churchy, I used them a lot less; I even admit to looking down upon others who did and being shocked by their vulgarity. I will also admit, I could be a better example to my children, and not just in this small area, but in lots of things.

I recently heard someone say that "Profanity is the poetry of anger." I think this can be true, although I have almost as frequently used it to tease or joke than to express rage. And there is always the issue of culture, what society deems acceptable or not.

I find myself really pretty socially unacceptable, most of the time. I am most definitely a paradox, searching and aching for something More, some connection, while at the same time being an utter disaster and enjoying it. I told my husband yesterday I feel like I have a split personality disorder; one half of me wants to sing hymns and be holy and speak the oracles of God while the other half wants to drink a shit ton of bloody Mary's, strip naked and dance like a monkey. He informed me this was normal and I know it isn't, not really, but it DID make me love him a tiny bit more.

I digress... After we went to dinner, we got pedicures and we had a fabulous time, laughing and joking and getting beautified. There was this flower on the wall across from where I was soaking my toes, and I'm not even kidding, it looked EXACTLY like the petals were made of vaginal lips. I couldn't help myself. I told my mom and sister too loudly and then laughed so hard I shook. I told them later I wish I would have asked them if they would have sold it to me. I got my sister to take a picture on her phone and then she sent it to me and I fired it off to some of my closest friends. They thought it looked like a ring o' vaginas too, and it just cracked me up. I'm demented, see?

Sunday was all about the Superbowl and my step-dad made finger foods and chili and baked potatoes and bought all these pastries and all kinds of stuff. I ate exactly none of it because I felt like I was going to be sick all day. I have upped my dosage on one of my RA meds, and it's taking a little adjusting. After Andrew and Dylan were sufficiently humiliated for rooting for the Seahawks (and they deserved everything they got because they'd been taunting us Pats fans for WEEKS), I took my meds, sang a couple karaoke Beetles songs with my sister, and then laid down in bed. She came and talked with me for a few minutes, and apparently I wasn't entirely lucid, since she told me the next morning I was talking to her about buying matching coffee cups with unicorns and dolphins on them. I deny this happened.

My mom and Trever got into an argument Monday before we left and I hate when this happens, ever, because I love both of them fiercely and I feel helpless to do anything useful. My mom got upset and cried, and there is nothing worse in the universe than seeing your mom cry. It turns me inside out. Trever and I talked about it on the way home, once I started speaking to him again and he had apologized to me three times. We worked it out and at least now I understand why he was upset, but it doesn't help the fact that every time you throw a rock into a pond, it creates ripples that take a long time to smooth out, and the damage has been done.

We got back to town around dinner time, and we bought KFC, as if that's even FOOD, and brought it home. We ate chicken and mashed potatoes and corn and biscuits, then we unpacked the van and our bags. I was thrilled, I mean just GIDDY, to discover a package in the mail from my friend Sarah with ALL FIVE of her published books, signed and personalized. I don't have words to explain how happy this made me. I have know her since I was nineteen. To see her put her words into those covers and to hold those volumes in my hands was a joy. I am so proud of her. I marveled at how joyful you can be to celebrate another person's success. I ate a Twix bar.

By the time I logged into the blog to post my (very short) Monday Memes post, I could (literally) barely keep my eyes open. I hit publish, Trever confiscated my computer, I instantly fell asleep and I didn't wake up until noon. I don't think my body moved once all night. Once I woke up, I hurriedly logged on to make sure I hadn't posted anything weird or funky on here, like some nonsense about dolphins and unicorns, but all was well.

Bible study is tonight but I already know I am too tired to go. I will just keep doing the homework and try for next week. I think I need to have a discussion with the very sweet lady facilitating so she understands my limitations and can work with me. I very much want to do this bible study, I'm not sure why really, but I do. Still, I'm not sure I will be physically able to go out at night for the meetings. Maybe on the weeks I can't make it, she can lend me the dvds to watch the sessions. I am doing my homework.

A couple of my kids, most especially Josiah, are behind on their school assignments. This has been a huge frustration to Trever, mainly because Josiah isn't even putting in the effort, he is essentially lazy, and he hates school. We are trying to work with his teacher, we have taken away privileges, but the bottom line is it is extremely difficult to get your child to do something they don't want to do or that they hate, even when it's good for them. It's like holding a baby's mouth open and forcing medicine in, even though they fight you will all their will and strength. You have to do it anyway, because they need it to get better, but it's still stressful for everyone involved.

I'm still tired of being sick, but at least for today, my pain level is low. I'm tired, but then I'm always tired. My plans for the evening include a long, hot soak in the bathtub and an early bedtime. I feel like I'm recovering from wildly and indiscriminately throwing all my energy around over the weekend. And to think, I only had ONE beer.

With an open heart and tired body,
Amy