5 Minute Memoir: Full Spectrum

My husband commented to me that I had been "growly" to him lately.

It's true.

There was the day that he placed a huge crock pot full of 3-day old non-refrigerated cooked beans on the deck and let the dogs eat them, and then left the house, and the dogs proceeded to come in and puke all over the floor.

And we were out of paper towels.

There was the day that I had to be gone til 4pm and asked him to pre-cook some chicken before I got home, and he assured me that he had it all under control, but then I got home and found that it wasn't cooked and the casserole that was to be made (for company!  for a birthday!) was set back by 30 or 40 minutes.

Yes, I was growly.  Sue me.

While it is true that I probably would not enjoy it if he growled at me for something I did, I feel like growling about bone-headed nonsense is a reasonable response.  Don't you?

I thought about how often I am reminded that people don't really want to deal with a full spectrum person.  Society tells us (especially women) all the time that there is an acceptable range of emotions, attitude, or responses that are ok.  If you step beyond that boundary, you are a bitch or irrational or have PMS and are to be ignored.

In talking to my daughter yesterday about a problem she had with a friend, it was revealed that she did not feel free to speak truthfully to this girl, even about something as simple as, "I would like it if you would not bring your TV and single-player video games to my house when you sleep over for my birthday."  She did not feel that she could tell her friend, "I would like to go out shopping with my mom alone."  She has learned what all of us learn--it is too risky to be honest.  People may ---e gads!--- think you are a *bitch* if you do not appease them.

Heaven help me break this cycle for my daughter!

I have sometimes had to remind my husband that if he wanted a robot for a wife, he made a wrong turn long ago.  You got yourself a full-spectrum woman here.  With the same voracity I can cook up the bacon, fry it up in a pan, bounce a baby on a hip, run a business, manage a home school, and never let you forget you're a man, among other things.  So, yes, after 4+ months of the pressure of trying to adjust to having new children, after 3+ months of caretaking and doing a huge, HUGE job while tending to a sick, in-hospital, recovering-open-heart-surgery-patient, YES it is true that some things may cause me to growl.  Yes, sure, it is not nice.  Because guess what--nice is not all I have to offer.