My worst self.

I woke up a few weekends ago and SOMEONE ELSE had overtaken my body. Completely overtaken me. It was as if I went to bed as me and I woke up in the morning with some alternate-me in my body. Someone who was not very nice. In fact if I was meeting myself for the first time that morning I would have said I was a major b#*!.

I was grumpy. I was short with people. I wanted to slam doors and break dishes. I did not want to take care of anyone else. I wanted to stay in bed and block out the world. I wanted a pedicure and a bubble bath and a $1000 shopping spree and a pink pony. And one of the worst parts was that I knew it. I KNEW I was behaving like my worst possible self. And the other worst part was there was no reason. There was absolutely NO reason to be so grumpy. Nothing horrible had happened. Everyone around me was in the same relative happiness and health as they had been the night before. There were no disasters and no bad news. There was no discernible reason for my case of the major grumpies.

And yet, I could not seem to stop. I am a grown adult who is supposed to be parenting two small children and I all I wanted to do was behave like one. And so I finally put myself in time out. It was as if I was floating up above myself and I looked at my WORST SELF and I had to say “you are behaving atrociously. it is time for a time out. come back when you can behave like an adult.”

And while my adult time out did not completely work it did take the edge off. I became my not-QUITE-worst-self and slowly started to redeem the day. I found a few reasons to smile and that led to a few reasons to laugh and that turned into a pleasant late-morning and so on and so forth.

So if I were my own best friend I would remind myself that sometimes adults need a time out too. A time out doesn’t really fix the grumpies but it does give you a chance to reset and sometimes that is the best you can do in the moment.

Unless someone wants to give you a pink pony and a pedicure and then I say “yes!” and let’s see where that goes.