I am a bit of a raw nerve today. I was holding back tears during my driving lesson. I realised that I really cannot take that kind of criticism. It was just one after another. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I snapped and told her she wasn't being helpful, that I need a minute because I wasn't feeling right just then.
We were quiet for a while and she carried on as usual. After a while I felt ok again.
I haven't been made to feel like that for a while. The world I live in now is strange - I am sheltered in that no one tries to criticise me in such a way. Even my husband is careful. G is only just beginning to be upfront with me. Now I know what my little girl must feel when I pressure her to keep to time and I tell her all the missteps she has done that led up to that final mistake. I really can be an awful mother.
But then earlier, I was told by our friend whose turn it is to carpool the kids home from school today, that eldest was going to get picked up from her house. Great, I said, husband will pick her up.
I then find out that she isn't there, she is at the office (where all the kids hang out and where the dads work and where us wives socialise occasionally). My blood immediately boils. Friend didn't tell me. My husband told me he saw eldest there when he was on his way out of the office to pick her up from friend's house.
So I call my friend, she apologised and said she forgot to say the kids got dropped off at the office instead of her house, and the kids are all there playing.
I'm not against her playing, of course. I can be flexible. Numerous times I have foregone our routine so eldest can play with the others. But I didn't know she would be left there. The mums aren't there, only the kids. Who's watching them?
It took me a real long time to calm myself down. I seriously was thinking of pulling eldest out of the whole carpool arrangement. But then I thought, man, this whole thing could implode, I need to calm down and figure out how to best navigate this situation so we can be in control of daughter's drop offs and pick-ups, without upsetting this setup.
If they ask, I may just tell them why exactly I am upset, and tell them about the other time something similar happened. While on the phone to my husband I told him that (apart from the obvious), I was also daughter's age when my parents thought they were leaving me with someone capable for many many years, who ended up abusing me, and also leaving me with others to be abused.
I tried breathing through the anger. Then I just ended up crying. A lot of things today just reminded me of my childhood, it really is quite painful having to face all of that even as an adult.
My smartwatch told me I was very stressed.
2022-01-20.6:48 p.m.
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