The Easy Groove*

You know the trouble with having a groove, a rut? It's so easy to get back into, no matter how long and hard you've tried to keep out. There is it, familiar, present, reminding you...

Someone once told me that thoughts follow pathways, and the more we think in a certain way, the easier it is to continue thinking that way. If one tends toward anger, one will respond with anger first. If one is joyful, then with joy.

When one tends toward sorrow...it's so easy to fall back into it. It's a mess, but it's a familiar mess.

I am trying. Really. I am.

But when T yells at me, as much as tells me I am stupid, he doesn't trust me, I am a liar...and then yells at our son because the boy misheard something and didn't do as he was asked...and then storms out of the house...well...

It's so very easy to fall into that hole. To shoulder the blame, swallow my own pain as inconsequential, allow fear to blossom...

I know he's hurting...but I can't allow him to take his anger at me out on Bird...the boy is already unhappy about the state of things in this house. I don't want him feeling like Daddy's anger is his fault. Bird's hiding in his room right now, unwilling even to talk to me, because he's crying and unhappy. I won't force him out...but oh, my heart aches. My heart aches for my little boy who just heard hard words, ugly words, from his father, words seemingly calculated to make the boy's pain worse.

I don't want to go to Ohio.

Maybe I shouldn't.

Maybe I should, for the first time ever, cancel my part in a performance I've committed to, tell the band I'm sorry, let them down...and stay here.

Somehow, the idea of being gone for ten days while T is here, in this house, able to wreak havoc if he wants...is unappealing. I know that's me not trusting him...

I can't help wondering, though...he's implied and said outright that he doesn't trust me and he thinks I'm a liar, and incapable of watching out for myself (despite the fact that I managed nicely without him before we met) or our son (Have I mentioned that I know how to kill someone with a chopstick? And would do so without hesitation of they so much as tried to harm my Evil Genius? Because...yeah...). I've often been told, and observed, that people accuse others of behaviors they themselves enact. Is that what's happening? Am I being called these things (falsely, I may add) because he knows he's guilty? Or is he lashing out, trying to hurt me in equal measure because I can't love him in equal measure?

Oh, I have so much to do, so much to think about, and right now? All I want is to fall back into that old, easy groove, hide from the world behind my darkness, set this new misery aside for the old, comfortable one.

But I can't.

I need to finish this sewing - a friend's business (and, not inconsequentially, her mortgage) depends on me following through, keeping my word. I need to go to this performance, because the band will benefit from this exposure, and the Evil Genius is so looking forward to using his new tent, playing in the sandbox, and being a wild thing for the week. What I want, what I need, doesn't matter right now.

Maybe later, I'll have time for the easy groove...but right now, I guess I'll suck it up, make my lonely way on down the road, and hope for the best.

*Edit - of course, this is just my perspective, and obviously I am flawed and have a skewed viewpoint...