Being Me…

I’m a mother with two small children, so I don’t take as much crap as I used to.

Pamela Anderson

This really speaks to me right now. I’ve discovered a new backbone, one might say, since I had my two children.  I don’t know if it is simply that I’m too tired to put up with excessive silliness or pointless wastes of time, or that I’ve actually grown, but the end result is that I just don’t tolerate it anymore.  Well, my tolerance level for it is much, much lower now.  I’m not rude about it; I just simply stand up and say, “You know what?  That’s about enough of that!”

I’ve started drawing boundaries with my mother and stepfather, who seem bound and determined to drive me mad.  I swear it is just like having children; they’ve pushed me and pushed me and pushed me, like children trying to found out just how much they can get away with.  It is a wonderful thing to discover that I can indeed say, “Hey, enough!  This isn’t good for me and it is going to stop”, even to my parents.  Not only is the new me good for my mental health - it is giving me more self-respect.

Today was fairly calm.  I didn’t talk to my parents.  I didn’t worry about what my husband was…or wasn’t … doing with his time.  I just played with the kids, bought some groceries, and did what I wanted with the little spare time I had.

Really, I think I’ve got to turn the ringer on my phone off or simply screen my calls until I can muster up the courage to tell my parents to leave me alone.  They are calling with advice on how I should handle the current financial situation.  I understand their concern, but they are really stressing me out.  Ugh.  I really don’t need MORE stress.  If they aren’t going to help me, I wish they’d stop making things worse.  Of course, they don’t realize they are stressing me and making things worse.  I just don’t know how to tell them to back off.  I’ve got to think of a tactful way to talk to them.

I also managed to spend some time looking up women role models for girls - women that little girls can look up to (powerful women, scientists, artists, writers, and so on).  I learned a lot in the process - a lot about women that I was never taught about in school.