Dear All
It’s been quite a while has it not? Since I have visited this page? I have tried to sneak into this space to pen you something without being noticed, for so long has been my absence that I should feel quite ashamed. Especially for those of you who have been suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms and who would not know how to embrace me again, without feeling I would leave you stranded again.
Apologise must I? – hmmm maybe I will or maybe I wont . Yes I sound as if I am throwing some sort of verbal strop. Maybe this is because it is that time of month, when in a woman’s world, tolerance is a bit like a swear word and the fighter in her comes out. Or maybe it is because I have been having a lot of practice with my youngest son who is 14 years old, who seems to be on a permanent pre-menstrual trip.
The past two weeks have been the battle of the wills in here. All of a sudden my son’s elder brother has become his target. Its bullseye if he can be as derogative and demeaning as he can be within the span of a full day – without surrender nor defeat – until his last barbed word and retort drift off into bed with him at night.
This unhealthy sibling rivalry thing has been pushing my very last nerve, but I have remained very calm, if I might proudly proclaim. If this child had been born back in the day – so the speak – he would be Hitler’s right hand man. Or as my eldest son has often said, he is sure his younger brother in his previous life was a slave master. “Yes, Suh”
My youngest son has been pumping weights on a regular basis. Yes I know it is a time of rampaging hormones, the sway between boy and teenager and trying to understand where they fit in that place, the flexing of the muscles in every sense, trying to assert himself. So dedicated is he to this working out lark, that I am worried he may just spout a muscle or two from his forehead. This dedication is commendable and as a mother, my pride swells when I walk past his room and he with furrowed brow, can be heard hissing and puffing and grunting as he diligently pushes his body beyond boundaries. Yes commendable but then there is a downside to all this humping and pumping. The male ego certainly knows when he should surface and therefore, with muscles that look at if they have an appetite of their own (I almost feel to shout at him over his music as it blares out to ‘do mind your eyes darling – your muscles are taking over’.)
My 14 year old now thinks he is the Don of the house, acting as if he belongs to the Mafia. The clicking of fingers at my eldest son, the constant persecution of his own disillusionary status, the constant competing with his brother over the most irrational and trivial of things has become very painful and boring. He is such a talented young man and is good at literally everything, and when I say everything I mean everything, the little swine, and yet he is bent on belittling his eldest brother at the drop of a hat. Now I am usually a woman of a calm and peaceful nature, one not often easily riled, especially with the amount of meditation and inhaling and exhaling that I do. And I must admit I have managed to remain very ‘together’ and ‘with it’ most times. I have only tripped on two occasions and I am sure I must have downed some sort of alcoholic beverage in my sleep or dreams and became ‘immaculately intoxicated’ along the way for on these two occasions, I was almost forced to ‘fight’ my son. Yet that would’ve been a very silly thing for ‘mummy dearest’ to do for two reasons. I am the mother and therefore in charge and should know how to conduct myself better. Secondly, my son is a very large boy – 6ft with size 11 feet and a handshake that would make Mike Tyson cry. And if I were so brave as to confront him aggressively, I would have to make sure I could ‘leg it’ to the airport, toute suite and leave the country.
So how am I dealing with this constant pushing of boundaries – I pray and meditate so that when I have to speak to him, I remain in my zone, somewhere between reality and NOT because energy travels and if I start to rant and rave and rage then he will too. So, as my father used to say – there is more than one way to skin a cat. I have tried several forms of attack and am thinking over several other strategies to help me deal with this boy trying to act like a man, but failing miserably and exhibiting signs of being a nasteeeeee huge bully – who really should have his bits ripped out and sold on the black market for a bill or two.
I have called in the troops though – my sister, his father and anyone else who I know can put pressure on him in terms of keeping him in line and in check, because I will not tolerate this sort of behavior from anyone.
In the meantime, I light my lavender so it travels around the house, I smile sweetly at him when he enters the room as if he is not pushing the reserves on my ‘I so want to beat the crap out of you’ button whilst still being firm so he knows I will not back down.
All in the life of a mother and her teenager. I feel if his pre-menstrual sulking and mood swings and behavior do not settle, I shall just have to resort to Plan Z and with that firmly in place – the police would never find his body and I do know that the Petunias would look so lovely over ‘he mound’ in the back of my garden.
