I had the worst day yesterday. I can’t even blame it on circumstances. I didn’t get in a wreck or anything. I didn’t find out I have cancer. I didn’t hear any bad news from my family. I just got home from Bethany‘s and it felt like reality smacked me in the face. The fun was officially over.

My house was dirty. The cats had puked all over the carpet. I’m out of grocery money (as usual) and I felt over-worked and under-appreciated in general. I hate cooking at the best of times, and right now my kitchen feels like a sauna every day at just the time I have to cook dinner. We have moths that infested every dry good in my minuscule pantry. It took me about an hour just to go through everything and throw out all the ruined stuff. I must have killed 50 moths, maybe 100. I hate those buggers.

Usually, I can take one foot and put it in front of the other and overcome these normal everyday annoyances. But on top of everything else, Toby and I got in a fight. Nothing serious, just the usual. You know, feeling like the other person has NO CLUE what you do all day long. I totally understand his point of view too. It’s not like he’s living on Easy Street and I can see why he might think all Bug and I ever do is go to the park and do arts and crafts. You know how it is. The other person never sees things quite the way you do. Normal marriage communication problems.

The problem is when I get upset I cease to be reasonable at all. Logic goes out the window and the next thing I know I’m a snotty miserable crying mess. I can’t string two words together that make any sense at all and if they do make sense they are just immature insults that I later wish I could take back. Sometimes I just give up and stop talking. Yesterday was one of those days.

I took Bug to the mall and we walked around. No shopping of course, just exploring. She bounced around with smiley happiness while I moped. Isn’t it weird how you can be so sad and at the same time all around you are happy people and happy things and happy music? I must have sat in Anthropologie for five minutes listening to some poppy tunes just feeling like the whole world was my bowl of irony.

It’s hard to keep it together for your kids sometimes. I did break down once and I explained it all to Bug. I know I can’t always hide these things from her and I know it’s healthy for her to see me cope. She tried to comfort me with a big sloppy hug. I love that kid.

Then I went home and cleaned my house from top to bottom. I cooked dinner and zoned out on my laptop while Bug ate and watched tv. Not the best family night but you can’t win them all. Then probably about eight o’ clock Toby came home from a photo shoot. I ignored him. He cleared his throat and when I turned around to see what he wanted my attention for, I saw that he held in his hand five dark red gerber daisies.

I forgave him immediately. He doesn’t do things like this very often but when he does they work like magic.