I’m generally a very even-tempered person. I tend to let things roll off my back, I don’t usually take things personally and I’m very forgiving.
Just kidding. Sorry if any of my family members just died laughing from reading that first paragraph. The truth is, I spend about 80% of my time talking myself off an emotional ledge.
I’m pretty good at my little self-pep-talks… though there are certain situations that’ll send me over that ledge I just mentioned. Lately I’ve been doing all sorts of super-deep self-examination (OMG that sounds so gross) like, you know, the introspective kind, trying to be a better mom, wife, woman, etc… the typical stuff. So I’ve been on hyper-alert. I’m trying to accept certain feelings, trying to label them… and then releasing them to the cosmos. Or something. I have no idea if this shit is gonna make me less or more crazy. I’ll let you know in a few months how things are workin’ out for me, mkay?
One of my new favorite feelings to identify is: Things That Make Me Want to Cut a Bitch.
Don’t freak out, I’m not going to go all murdery on you guys; I just think it’s sort of an interesting experiment to take note of these rage-y feelings that occasionally boil up inside of me. Maybe this will be a series or something.
The first thing that makes me want to cut a bitch is when someone hurts my kid. Even if by accident. It really doesn’t matter, I will still vividly fantasize about ramming a brick into someone’s face if they hurt my kid. Like the other day, we were at a rest stop gas station, and as I walked out with my four-year-old, Mari, some lady swung her arm and hit Mari in her sweet little perfect baby arm with her lit cigarette. As she apologized repeatedly and profusely (and Mari screamed), here is what I thought: What the fuck are you doing smoking a cigarette right where everyone is walking? Even if you’re not waving your arms around with a lit cigarette in your hand – which is stupid enough in and of itself – you still shouldn’t be exposing everybody to secondhand smoke just because you have an addiction. There are other places to smoke. Also? Watch where you’re swinging that fucking torch. Idiot. (Mari’s arm is okay, by the way.)
Yeah. But that’s normal enough, right?
The second thing I noticed makes me want to cut a bitch is if I think about my husband boinking another woman. Somehow or another I got into a conversation with some friends of mine about sex drives and someone made a joke about how the one of us with the strongest sex drive should have sex with the husbands of the other women with the weaker sex drives. Everyone thought that was wonderfully hilarious, and so did I, except: I should not have pictured that actually occurring in my head. Because it made me want to cut a bitch. My husband is mine. MINE. I will boink my husband even when I’m bored and unhorny in order to keep him content because MINE FUCKING MINE. Now I’m not gonna pretend I’m always perfectly chaste and monogamous in my private fantasies, because… mkay actually nevermind, not gonna talk about that but whatever. I’ve been informed by some extremely reliable sources that I am normal in that regard. The point I am trying to make is, I don’t do sharing. I don’t even do thinking about sharing.
Still kind of normal, I think. Jealousy isn’t the weirdest thing anyone’s ever heard of, right?
The last thing I’ve noticed lately that makes me want to cut a bitch? When I get a hair stuck to the back of my arm. The odd thing about this last one is that I don’t have anyone at whom to direct my anger. It’s a lot of spinning, flailing and couch-flipping. But you know, you have to find the hair. You can’t just fucking leave it there.
That’s a fun new feeling to identify, isn’t it? Why don’t you try it now: What makes you want to cut a bitch?
(This piece first ran on Abandoning Pretense.)