Last night, as I took my birth control pill, I noticed something was off. I’d taken Monday’s pill. It was Sunday night.

A moment’s sleuthing revealed I’d either taken two pills some previous evening and only last night realized the mistake. Or possibly, forgotten to take birth control for a whole week.

Both options seemed so unlikely that I briefly asked my kids if any of them had taken my pills, adding that FYI, taking one birth control pill does not protect you for the day you take it, the pill doesn’t work that way.

They all looked at me like I had lost my marbles. Which? Your mom randomly accusing you of stealing her pills does sound a little Crazy Cat Lady. And they are all of the age where we’ve talked about how birth control works. But also, I have two teenagers, so denial with a side of You Crazy face is on steady rotation these days.

It seems unlikely I would have taken two pills in one day as I’m pretty routine about taking them right before bed. Also, summer vacation did start about a week ago, so it’s disturbingly possible I was so thrown off course with the change in seasons that some part of me was all, FUCK IT, SOMETHING’S GOTTA FALL OFF THE END OF YOUR TO-DO LIST.

The third possibility, which somehow must always be entertained these days, despite my eye-rolling resistance: MAYBE YOU ARE GETTING DEMENTIA, ANNE. Which, demented and pregnant at 45? I fully give you all permission to write the Lifetime Movie based on true events. Please leave your favorite Lifetime-esque title suggestions in comments.

Anyway, now I gotta Sherlock my calendar to figure out when I picked this packet up, and thus waste some small amount of time/brainpower I am obviously already in deficit for resolving this mystery.

The birth control thing is a microcosm of how life is going over here. Everything is slightly off kilter and discerning small dose reality seems difficult. Also, since I am insecure in myself, my family is also a bit off balance and giving me side-eye.

Another example: My oldest kid, now 16, went to a freaking 10am to 10pm party, which ended at a house out in the country. Around 7, my kid had already texted that the party was going to go late, maybe to 10:30.

I texted back that since we had obligations the following morning, 10 would be better. She said OK. But already, I was cranky. One side: Who wants to be the kill-joy parent who drags their kid home early from a party so awesome that twelve continuous hours is not enough? On the other, I had been getting up at 5:30 am that week to exercise before it got too hot, and I was already feeling stretched going out there at 10. PS: Both these sides were working together to make me feel like an asshole. My husband offered to do pick up, but this house had been hard to find in the daytime, and he hadn’t been there before.

Anyway, I roll up at the property at 10, and the front gate is locked. I call my kid. She doesn’t pick up her phone. The gate is maybe a quarter mile from the front door. When I dropped my kid off, there was a dog, but it seemed friendly. But who knows how it’d be if I jumped the perimeter fence in the dark and stealthed up to the house?

Standing out in the starlight, with the distant laughter of teenage girls coming from afar, I was SOOOOOOO pissed. I knew probably no else was coming until 10:30pm, and I was angry with my kid for not picking up. Also angry at my own lack of social skills/planning that I didn’t have the host’s phone number. After a brief interlude where I cursed like Donald Duck and considered just blaring my horn until someone either called the cops or came to open the gate, I got out of the car, fumbled around in the dark, discovered the side gate unlocked, left my car on the road, and hoofed to the party.

I was trying so hard to not look pissed when I got there, just casually point out that their front gate was locked. But I must have looked like I was going to kill someone, because the hostess and her husband and the friend who stayed to help all backed away slowly and refused to make eye contact. Whatever.

My kid was in the hot tub, which was why she didn’t answer her phone (it was in a bag of her stuff, and the kids were playing and being loud, etc.) Anyway, she should’ve had her phone on her, but she couldn’t have predicted the host would have locked the gate. But as we traipsed all the way back to the car, I was so furious, I was afraid to speak.

In the past, I’ve been pretty skilled at understanding why I’m angry. When I can verbalize the logic, it gives me a way to get my point across in the least angry way possible. Or, failing that, at least anger that I feel is appropriate to the situation, since I know why I’m pissed off. But this situation (unfortunately, like many a situation these days) I was just SUPER PISSED I DON’T KNOW WHY, ARGHHHHH!!!!!

Plus, these days, since I’m finding myself more angry than usual, I am also always second guessing if perhaps my anger is just some over amplified expression of grief about my dad and unrelated to the situation. Upshot was that I probably scared my kid worse with my silent rage, which I thought was an act of protection so I didn’t say something I didn’t mean, but she took as me being so angry that her imagination filled the void and someone was probably dead and I was just too traumatized to tell her. Which? She was skilled at explaining her anger, and I was not skilled at explaining mine, so I ended up apologizing to her!

{an endless scream has been redacted here for your reading convenience}

True fact: Even with all that, my husband still had to explain to me why I was pissed, later, after the kids were all in bed and I’d been crying for an hour and hated everyone. Once he explained it, I felt calm. There is a lot of peace in things making sense.

Anyway, there is this whole other piece about whether I was being a bad mother beyond the initial insult of my kid not picking up her phone, or that I was recreating some stuff I hated about the way my mother mothered. But I’m already exhausted just from putting this part down. So maybe another day for details, but broad swaths:

There is also this huge component of second guessing not only my anger, but fear I will end up with my children estranged from me as I estranged myself from my mother. If I have empathy for myself in the mistakes I make as a mother, does that mean I must also have sympathy for my mother, now as I can sometimes see it from the mother’s-eye-view? And if I do, will I eventually feel horrible for my role as the kid, the way I cut her out?

That is a fuck-all amount of complexity for which I am currently poorly equipped to deal. But the good news is that while I’m still sleeping a lot, I generally feel better and more capable. It took hours, but I was able (with help) to get back to the place of understanding my own motivations. I was able to go back and talk through it with my kid. I didn’t get increasingly spun off into Crazy Town, I just took a detour there on my way back to OK.

The Exes

My mother has not yet set a date for Dad’s memorial service. I don’t ask her about it, because I figure having a date will not decrease my anxiety, so what do I care? Surprise me, universe!

His birthday was this month, and I called Middle about something unrelated, but we ended up talking a bit about him. Middle said one of The Exes had emailed her, reminding Middle it was Dad’s birthday and requesting she forward this information to me. Here is another example of me not knowing if my level of SHUT THE FUCK UP, EX knee-jerk reaction is appropriate to the situation. On its face, a reminder of a birthday is not exactly slapping someone with a glove and demanding a duel

(Because I love referencing a outdated parody songs):

but I still felt indignant. If I don’t know my own dad’s birthday, it’s not for this person to send out a reminder. Also, the cat’s paw of using Middle is totally this person’s “Look at me trying to establish kind and loving contact with Anne, who has so cruelly cut me off when I just want to tell her something pitiful and innocuous, like don’t forget about your family.” Fuck all the way off is my feeling, but maybe I am triggered.

Also, Middle said, “I told [The Ex] I wouldn’t pass anything on to you…. but I guess I am now. But only because it came up in context.” This, I can only really laugh at, as I also know the struggle of trying to be good about boundaries and then fucking everything up the moment I stop concentrating.

Anyway, the same Ex sent out a mass email about their life this month, in which my address was specifically cc’d. This hasn’t happened for a while, and the email went directly into Junk. However, all the Reply Alls did not get caught and showed up in my regular mail. I don’t know what action I can take aside from what I am already doing, which is not responding in any way. I considered sending a Reply All telling this person I never wanted to hear from them again. But on the balance, Whoa, guess am I super over angry all the time? and also, more contact, even in the format of public disowning, seems like… well, contact. Which would be closer than where it is now. Which I guess is just this person poking around the perimeter of my life, trying to make contact.

Since the contact came as a Reply All from someone I didn’t recognize, I opened the note. I want to think this Ex is probably grieving. Death can make you want to reach out and reaffirm social bonds. But their mass sent email wasn’t personalized to me, and it wasn’t an apology, just an intrusion formatted as an update on their personal lives, signed on behalf of both The Exes, many years after it should be clear I don’t want contact. The content of the letter also made me suspect both The Exes will be at the memorial service, and this two-in-one-month attempt to contact makes me suspect they are gearing up for some further attempt at the memorial.

This, in combination with my newfound rage seems like one of those nightmares where two explosive things are on track to collide, and no matter what you do, you can’t stop it.

Wait, maybe that’s too grim a take. The other side is, maybe this anger is something inside me preparing to really change my family pattern…. in the form of a screaming fuck-for-all at my dad’s funeral. Maybe this is not something to be afraid of, but to embrace. Like some Marvel Comic dipped in radiation and now I’m transforming into some low level style superhero/villain. If I can reap some sort of positive change from all this anger, maybe it will be worth having felt it.

I gotta say, Dad wasn’t too keen on either of these people. I don’t think he’d be entirely against it.