I'm thinking Father's Day may have been part of the reason for yesterday's panic attack. Heather mentioned it, and it's kind of the cherry on top of all my anxiety. When I was a kid, I didn't have panic attacks. Sure, occasionally I'd get anxious, but for the most part, it was more of a normal variety. After my dad died when I was 19, it took on a whole new level, and here we are, 22 years later.
Father's Day got a little better after Jeff and I had kids. We have always celebrated with my stepdad and dad-in-law (who are both amazing and deserve the celebration), but the elephant in the room is definitely how much I miss my dad, his laughter, and the joy he brought into most everything. But with kids, we celebrate my husband, and I get to see their excitement at giving him handmade cards and presents (we got him an insulated photo collage coffee mug, and an Intex pool).
We all headed over to my mom's to celebrate, each bringing our own food (or eating ahead of time in our case), so that we could see each other and converse. The girls went in the pool, the adults sat around chatting. Jeff swam with the girls, playing Marco Polo, and splashing around. But Jeff had to finish up at Sam's and so the visit was cut a bit shorter than any of us would have liked. The girls and I went over to visit him in the late afternoon, but with all the paint touch ups, he was concerned about them touching something (they aren't the best with avoiding paint), and so we spent much of Father's Day waiting for him to get home. Around dinner, I called to check in, and he said he was wrapping up and would be home soon (I was calling to see if we should bring him dinner). We got into one of our only fights of this quarantine, as he thought I should have offered to do some of the work on the house, and I thought he should have asked if he wanted me to. The girls and I held off on dinner, but 6:30 turned to 7 and then 7:30 as the tummies grumbled and our fuses started to run a little short, so I gave the girls some veggies to munch on, called Jeff again, and got a terse answer that he was coming home. At this point, he thought I'd fed the kids, and I thought he'd be home in ten minutes so I didn't, and it wasn't until almost 8:30 that he walked in the door,
Needless to say, dinner wasn't particularly pleasant, with him fuming and the girls tired and hungry, and me just exhausted. It's a reminder of why communication is important, and why we usually don't fight- we're normally much better at speaking what we need and want. But with everything going on stress-wise, we forgot about that for much of the day. And at 8:30, the girls just wanted to spend time with their dad, so we crammed in some chess and storytime, and bedtime got pushed back. It wasn't the best Father's Day, but it wasn't the worst, and sometimes, you need a little bad to remind you of how good you have it most of the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment