My teenagers hear tones that aren't there.
Navigating this phase of midlife and pre-menopause can be trippy. Moody highs and lows fluctuate moment to moment. Estrogen levels surge or bottom out, and I become the anxious and neurotic Betty Basketcase. Human contact becomes a problem (I know, I know, the neuroscience and chemistry of imbalance is much more complicated than this, but on planet hotflash, we need simplified representations in our membrane in order to cope). Hormone levels miraculously balance, and I’m cool again. Totally cool like the other side of the pillow.
The moody mommy gig is made extra trippy living with hormonally challenged teenagers. When mommy is burning up, her teens know not to make eye contact, drop a crumb, or speak. We feel their pain when that mommy is in the house. But what kills us is when a rare, sparkly, even, happy aura--complete with unicorns and cotton candy--settles upon the mommy; when shitty attitudes move light years away, and those hormonal teens choose THIS such moment to be evil. It's as if they are possessed to send her back to Insanity Beach.
I deserve a peaceful reprieve from happy-happy-not-not disease. I do. Why stomp out my balanced buzz? This typical ‘in the kitchen’ exchange illustrates of what I rant.
Me (without any shred of a tone): Did you bring the garbage cans in yet?
L. (eldest son): STOP FREAKING OUT!
Me (calm and without a tone): I’m not freaking, sweetie. I’m asking a simple question.
L.: YOU’RE FREAKING OUT AGAIN! DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT!
Me (developing a hint of a tone): The volume of my voice has not changed. You’re imagining stuff. Come back to earth and just answer the friggin question.
L.: Uggggggh! I’ll bring ‘em in later when I’m out there.
The younger son, J. enters the kitchen.
J.: ElijahWoodPeepers is gonna come over to eat pizza bagels with me and practice doin’ backflips, k? Then we’re gonna jump on the trampoline.
Me (without any tone): Is all your homework done?
J. (as if I have plunged the rotary pizza cutter into his eye socket): STOP FREAKING OUT!!!
Me: This is NOT freaking out. And I absolutely cannot have you turning into your older brother. I’m just not havin’ it. Read my lips. Do. You. Have. Homework?
J. (blank expression): I don’t have to listen to this.
Me (with a completely gone bye-bye mental TONE as I scan the room for pizza cutters or weapons of minor destruction): OHMYGOSH. NOOOOOOBODY’S COMING OVER TO THIS HOUSE. NO ONE!!! YOU WILL GET THAT HOMEWORK DONE BEFORE YOU DO YER FLIPS!! AND YER SKATING AND YER TRAMP JUMPING! And YOUUUUUUUUUU! (pointing a threatening finger at L.) GET YER LAZY BUTT OUT TO THE CURB AND BRING IN THOSE CANS!!!
And then they obey me.
I have no explanation why these offspring have lost their appetite for a mother not freaking out. Why they must upset her happy place and unleash the freak at all costs. Can we honestly keep blaming sleep deprivation (both theirs and mine)?
The combustion of puberty and menopause appears unstoppable. I'm told there will be a return to love, and this discombobulation is preparing us for their launch from the nest. But sweet mother how pathetic is it that after all my training in counseling and interpersonal dynamics, a freak show continues to be the most effective ammo in my arsenal?
Each day brings a new show, one more hostile tone, one more conflict between Generation Me and a momwitch. More cruelty. More mood shifts. And since estrogen is a diurnal cycling beast, moody momwitch occasionally frets herself to sleep. Of all things in the friggin universe to lament, she wonders how in the world she'll manage someday to be separated from the very children who torture her.
She's no masochist. Probably. She simply understands that Unicorn Paradise or Hormonal Chernobyl, someday she'll be lost without these young men.
Michele has a husband, two children, a master's in counseling and a blog at hellolovelychild.blogspot.com.
