Who ever said I couldn't be a farm wife?

I haven’t had much to say lately because I really haven’t been feeling like myself.

Esme’s best friend is exactly a year and a day older than she is. The two of them are like siblings. So much so that they play really well almost all of the time, but when they don’t play well together, boy oh boy you better watch out. That’s where we’ve been this week and we’ve been teasing Liv about being a grumpapotamus (one of my favorite words for extreme, unexplained grumpiness).

That is exactly how I feel. So grumpy as to fill a whole room with my grumpiness, I could squeeze all the oxygen right out and fill it back up with my discontent. The problem is that I’m mostly discontent with myself and not matter what I do I’m still right there in the room with me.

Lately I’ve been a grumpapotamus about my husband’s girlfriend. I’ve spent way too much time fixating on my husband and his girlfriend and the way their existing screws up my life. I’ve been wallowing, feeling bitter and angry. I hate it most because I barely recognize myself when I’m this person. This is not me. It does not feel good but I just can’t stop.

So yesterday I decided I would stop. 

It was doing me no good! 

This decision was the result of, ironically enough, the girlfriend’s husband’s (or ex or soon to be ex) blog. He had a great post about being in control. How we are often more in control than we realize, even when we feel like we are merely reacting to what life is throwing at us…

“I feel like in life we are often on our heels, cornered into a place where we are on the defensive and forced to react. It’s only when we realize that we actually do have control that we can take charge and move on.”

So I think he may have posted this just for me…As I read his words I realized I have given them way too much power. I let them suck all the oxygen out of my room. And I got nothing out of it. It did not feel good at all to be angry. I really didn’t like it. I think there were some real situations that I needed to be angry about and I think it’s important to feel that emotion in a situation like this.

But, Boy! Did it not get me anywhere. And just as I was trying to figure out how to move myself past this emotion I was torturing myself with, I read my friend’s blog. And I realized it was so obvious. 

I am in control. 

Of all of it. 

I get to choose what bothers me about their actions, their lack of apologies, his lack of support for his daughter…better yet, I can take Sandra Boynton’s advice and Be Like a Duck.

So that’s what I’m going to do: 

“Maybe you stroll, maybe you fly, maybe just float and let the river roll by.” 

“When the rain starts fallin’ let it roll off your back. Just open up your beak and go quack, quack, quack.”

So, I’m taking control. My life is mine again. Apparently I’m kicking the grumpapotamus out and replacing him with a duck. It’s animal week here at the Ashcroft homestead…