random musings of the mildly emotionally dispossessed

Mom's here visiting. She got a little worried last week when I called her bawling incoherently, crying so hard my eyelids were swollen shut, which made it difficult to drive, quite frankly. But I had just been at the home improvement store, and there was no school, and my paychecks aren't quite covering the living expenses, and night shift makes me crazy, and the kids were at each others' throats, and the lady at the home improvement store ran up and started freaking out about them playing around the big hanging rolls of carpet. So they climbed out, and MixMan started talking to me while I was talking to the lady about vinyl tile, and he's losing more hearing, and so doesn't really know when his voice gets loud, and I was trying to sign to him while talking to her, and she looked at me and said, "I can't even hear myself think." and I apologized, pointed out that MixMan is deaf, that he doesn't know how loud he's being. And she shakes her head, and glares at MixMan, and says, "I can't hear myself think to talk!!"And I guess I kind of lost it, because I said, "he's deaf, deal with it. I live it, bitch." I've never done that before in my life, called somebody i don't know a bitch.
Anyway, Mom flew over here two days later. She's kind of like me, wants to be present even if she can't really do anything. And she's as stubborn as I am. So. She's here until Wednesday, and the kids are loving it. . .all this personal attention from grandma, and I get to lounge on the what-will-become-of-me bed in my pink and green bedroom.
So I'm sitting here, listening to Sia, and keeping an ear peeled for trouble in paradise downstairs since my mom is at church and is not currently around to play peacekeeper. Mostly what I'm doing is thinking about what it means to be a parent, and a lover, and a friend, and how to balance all of those things into something that feeds the heart and soul.
I frequently think that my children are much better off with me being benignly neglectful than actively parenting. . . and I wonder how many years of therapy they're both going to have to go through because of how short my temper is with them sometimes. But they are so very forgiving, aren't they? I could learn a lot from them.
We lose sight of the fact that really, all we're here for is to relate and love and communicate with other people. What could possibly be more important than to know and be known, to open yourself up to someone else? Anything that prevents that is an excuse, and I am guilty of making those excuses myself. . . opening yourself up to the possibility of being loved, why the hell does that make us all so afraid?
I sit here, and I paint, and I listen to my music, and I drink my coffee. Sometimes I cry, sometimes one of my kids comes in and gives me a hug and a little kiss on the cheek. Occasionally, I rock back on my heels, hug my legs, rest my chin on my knees, and wonder how we all became so fragile and broken.