Boring Adult Things, Lists

Rage

Today, I woke up angry.

Not grumpy, but angry.

Brandon had fallen asleep on the couch and left the door unlocked all night after he came home from a gas station run. He was the first to get the wrath.

Next was the stray cat who thinks he’s invited into our house for breakfast – how did you get in here?! Scram!

Next was the Bank of America automated phone message, who refused to get me to a representative.

I don’t know why I was so angry today. Maybe it was because I had to get up for work while Brandon got the day off. Maybe it was because he fell asleep on the couch, again, and left me to sleep alone in the bedroom. Maybe it was because of hormones.

I think it really had to do with me frittering away my last true break before the baby and realizing this morning what I’d done.

We both spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s working nonstop: me putting in hours for my jobs, him putting in endless hours to finish our bathroom renovation, both of us making 5+ runs to Home Depot, cleaning the house from top to bottom, hiring a handyman to fix things around the house, organizing the office, making meals to freeze for postpartum time, getting our latest wills notarized, buying rugs for every room in the house, getting a new TV stand. Even in the moments we had available to chill, we couldn’t do it. We’d get cabin fever and venture out on another errand. I’d end up getting pinged for work. We missed the ball drop on New Year’s because we were cleaning our bathroom. Apropos end to 2016.

I am so over living under this kind of duress, and now it’s permeated into Brandon’s psyche. My once calm husband is now his own little whirling dervish of activity.

I don’t know what to do to break this cycle of panic before this child enters our lives. I pictured myself screaming at Cameron the way I did at the stray cat this morning. “Joey, get the FUCK out of my house! Next time you walk your ass in here, it’s going to the pound!” Not a healthy environment for a baby.

I’m angry, and sad, and tired, and restless. You’re supposed to feel rejuvenated after a long period of a break, right? So why are we headed into 2017 feeling more tired than we were before Christmas? And will the To Do list, once a Bucket List and now a haunting Honey Do list, ever really be Done?