Do You Remember Your FIrst Time?

Do you remember your first time?
Not that time.
I'm talking about the moment that you realized you don't have to sit and be berated by someone. I have this theory that as an adult, I shouldn't be yelled at. Unless, I'm about to step in front of a bus, DON'T YELL AT ME.
I'm good with the cheering for football teams and screaming "Go" at swim meets, but I can think of very few times when I should have to sit and take it while someone yells at me. I think as children we grow up knowing everyone else has authority. We sit compliantly while parents or teachers or coaches or principals list our shortcomings in very loud voices.
I was in my 20s and had finished grad school when I realized that I could get up and leave as an ex-boyfriend pounded on his steering wheel explaining why I was wrong.
I can picture the scene. It was the week after Thanksgiving and I had flown from my new job in Florida to Baltimore to be with a sometime boyfriend. The problem was, I had started seeing a new guy while I was in Florida, so I was pretty ambivalent about seeing this guy. I'd already purchased the plane tickets and I wondered whether I should give this older guy in Baltimore a chance.
I explained to him ahead of time that I was conflicted and he uged me to come. "We'll just have fun!" he promised. But things became uncomfortable quickly. On the second day, I asked him to drive me to my friend's house in nearby Maryland.
We pulled up outside her apartment and I could see the vertical blinds in front of the sliding glass doors as we sat in the car. The ex-boyfriend began to get upset, his voice rising as he explained why I couldn't do this, how wrong I was.
Looking back, I, of course, had made some mistakes. I should have cancelled my trip, but that didn't give him the right to yell at me.
And as I fought off tears, he pounded on the steering wheel for emphasis, and I felt my hand close around the door handle. I pulled it open and grabbed my suitcase.
I walked away.
"You can't just walk away," he yelled.
But I could and I did.
I can still remember that feeling, that realization that I didn't have to sit and take the yelling. Such freedom!
Even now I can breathe deeply and imagine a weight rising from my chest.
The ex-boyfriend later wrote a letter apologizing and we did meet up again, parting on better terms.
I wonder if this is something all women figure out or if there are women who still feel like they deserve the yelling, the list of shortcomings, the abuse.
Whether male or female, I don't have to take it, and on the few times I have to exert my rights to walk away, I recall that first time.

Learning Lessons

While my husband was away for five days, I learned some important lessons about myself. Well, two.
1. I get to be the good parent because he flies off the handle.
When he was gone, I found myself becoming the yelling parent and I wondered if the only reason I am the calm, caring parent is because he yells so I don't have to.
On Tuesday night when Spencer stayed out until 10, I was the one who met him at the door with threats of grounding. It was a school night after all.
You already know how I handled the things with Grace (see post below).
I found one too many wet towels in Tucker's room and sentenced him to two full loads of laundry, washed, dried and folded, before he saw his friends again.
At that point, all of my kids were asking, "Why are you so mad?" "Why are you taking this out on me?" Good questions.
And, the moment my husband returned, he jumped right into the yelling role again, and I became the soother, trying to smooth things over.
The second lesson, I learned from my husband's trip:
2. You'll get a more joyful welcome home if you arrive at 4:30 p.m. rather than 4:30 a.m. And don't expect sex when you come home at that hour either.

NO YELLING!

Well, we made it to day three before there was yelling in the morning on the way out the door to school. I'm not sure if that's a record because I haven't kept track. But, suffice it to say that pressure was building already. It started yesterday afternoon when said child realized he had forgotten books he needed to do homework so we drove back to the school to visit his locker. Then I dropped him to play basketball for an hour and a half, he came home to finish his homework and went out on an hour-long Mike & Ike run with his buddies. Going to bed about 10:30, after complaining that his friends stay up to 1 a.m. no problem and still get all "A"s, he suddenly began complaining about a headache. Was that dehydration from playing basketball in 87-degree heat or from the gross chemicals in the Mike & Ike's?
Then this morning as we are leaving he pulls papers from his backpack, "You need to sign these."
Could I have signed them while he was watching Family Guy the night before?
"You have to keep up with everything," I yelled.
Yes, I was the yeller and he was the yellee. But, this just goes to prove my point that the best thing ever about homeschooling was the fact that you didn't have to get your kids out the door every morning. Because getting the kids out the door causes stress which leads to yelling and sometimes crying, but we haven't gotten there yet.
When the kids were little, maybe 5, 3 and 1, Grace and Spencer went to a Montessori school. Each morning, I would bribe one-year-old Tucker with a Mento if he would get in his car seat and get buckled. Like Pavlov's dog, he learned his lesson well and still craves sugar as a reward.
Fast forward to ages 17, 15, and 13, getting out of the house is still hard.
"Why do we have to leave so early?"
"Did you get the box of tissues I have to turn in for extra credit?"
"Did you pay my school fees?"
"Which lunch is mine?"
I'm so grateful for those nine years of homeschooling when I wasn't yelling at my kids, at least not to get them out the door. Now, I have only a few years to catch up on all that yelling I missed.
SO GET MOVING!