~ A New Low ~

I give up.  I can’t fight it any more.

I’m accepting the fact that no matter how hard I try, I can never be cool, calm, and collected.  I must embrace the spaz in me.

Usually I disrupt the peace with inappropriate comments or impromptu bodily expulsions.  But today, I’ve crossed into the area of hysterical mommy emotional outbursts.

You see, Varmint and Critter performed in the Monocacy Elementary School variety show today.  This is Varmint’s last year in elementary school…her last cute-as-hell variety show there, too.  She was in two numbers.  One was dancing with a friend, and the other was a solo song.

It was the song that got me.

She had told me she was singing to something from Miley Cyrus.  Ok.  Whoop-dee-doo.  I can handle Miley Cyrus in small batches. No problem-o.

Boy was I wrong.

She sang a heart wrenching song about butterflies flying away.  My fifth-grader-about-to-graduate-into-middle-school was singing a song about changing and leaving…a bittersweet song about caterpillars turning into butterflies and flying away.

And the floodgates opened.

And the tears gushed forth in unstoppable waves.

My Captain, who had been enjoying the charming elementary performances, was not prepared to have his wife burst into what appeared to be an accurate impression of an Italian grandmother at a funeral.  He put his arm around me and held me awkwardly.

I had not expected this.  He had not expected this.  Neither one of us had tissues.

Varmint sang like a nightingale throughout, ripping my heart into shreds.

Didn’t she know she was singing my worst fear?  That she was blossoming into a butterfly and was on the verge of flying away?

No!  No!  Don’t leave, little butterfly!  No! No!

This is a good thing, My captain reassured me.  You want her to grow independent.  She has to.  You would not want to hold her back.

The hell I wouldn’t!   It’s a big bad world out there!   I have to protect her!

It’s natural for her to grow away and mature.  You’ve done a good job.  Now stand back and trust her.

Are you crazy?  I haven’t poured all my blood, sweat, and tears into the child just so she could leave me!

Yes you did.  That is exactly why you did.  So she would be able to leave when the time comes.

Oh that’s a low blow.  Using my own guilt techniques against me.  That’s just totally low.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the fetal position in the corner, singing ‘Butterfly Fly Away’ over and over and over……