I'm starting my blog on an odd day. In four days, I'll be turning 43. I was ok with it. Really I was. I was focused on the eReader my husband is picking out for me, not on the number.
Then, it happened. The trigger of reality. My fifteen year old daughter came to me and said she was doing a Family Tree for Spanish class, and showed me the picture of Grandpa she was using. "buuuut, that means I'll be using a picture of you, too." There are two ways I could take this. I could go with making it funny, or letting it hurt. I tried to take it funny.
I said,"make sure you pick a good one."
"That's going to be kind of hard."
Ouch. I don't exactly remember my response, but Precious Teen followed me around hollering,"because I took them myself!", so she must have realized she punched me in the gut.
So I put it on Facebook. The whole time I was typing in my story (See, Precious Teen is grounded from FB right now and couldn't defend herself) I was laughing myself silly. I had tears rolling down my face. But as I pushed "comment" or "enter", and wiped the tears of hilarity away, I realized I'd actually been crying, and that I felt hurt. That is a new emotion for me. Usually I react in anger, or righteous indignation, but I've always thought that if you have people around you that you trust, and know they didn't mean to be malicious, that it shouldn't hurt.
Here's the background of her comment, aside from her dear mother being in a tender state of Pre-Birthday Sensitivity. PT can't take a good picture even with our fancy camera. During that gap between when you push the button and the picture uploads, something always happens, especially if she is aiming the camera at me. I didn't even know my face did the things she captures on SD card. During Christmas, this became a running joke, because it was worse than usual. So, when she came to me, all cautious, it wasn't really because she thinks I'm so hideous that she hesitates to use a picture of me on her family tree. That is just my own preconception.
Then the comments came in on my FB entry, saying she was just like her mother. UH Oh! Are my funny comments taken as sharp hits to the gut to my friends? Maybe I think too much, but wow. All this time, I was focussed on my hurt, but maybe I need to focus on how my comments strike others...
But I'm still getting a new hair-style tomorrow.
