I Don't Like You Right Now

(a FFF post)

We arrived at Grandma's house at 10:00 p.m. after spending 13 hours in the car. I was with my mother and my three children, and we were all exhausted.

The kids, of course, were also tired of being cooped up in the car and were ready to play! I was ready to fall asleep standing up. This was not a good combination.

Elijah especially was hard to handle. He was resisting bedtime, something he doesn't normally do, by asking for numerous glasses of water, calling my name, talking to his brother, jumping on the bed, etc., etc.

I responded well enough to the first few things. And I tried to be as honest as I could. I sat on Elijah's bed and said in a calm, soft voice, "Elijah, I am exhausted. I need to go to bed and I need you to go to bed, too."

Elijah's a sweetheart, and normally such a pathetic appeal would have gone straight to his heart.

As he kept calling for me, I became more and more distressed. "WHAT do you NEED?" I would ask, until eventually my responses were yells. I was so tired I was almost crying.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not operate well as a tired person. So they will know that I am not exaggerating when I say I was near tears.

As this whole thing was going down, my mother quietly looked on. In exasperation, I almost said to her, "I think Elijah is so tired that he doesn't understand how awful he's being!" But I didn't let those words come out of my mouth because I knew someone else who was being horrid: me. In fact, I was being much MORE horrid than my son. I mean, when a 5-year-old pitches a fit, that's one thing. When a 28-year-old does it, it's quite another.

Finally, after Elijah had quieted down and I had managed to crawl into bed (whimpering as I went), my mother said, "Go to bed. I don't like you right now."

I let out a sad, hollow laugh and said, "I don't like me right now, either." Luckily, moments later I was asleep.