I was having a lovely Sunday afternoon, for no particular reason, until a minor household crisis arose. I sprang into action and, with MP’s help, devised a solution. I could have been pleased at our successful planning. We haven’t implemented yet, but we know what we need to do and he’s heading out to get the parts to make it happen.

So why am I not pleased? Because it was not really my problem to solve. My daughter didn’t ask me to solve it. She was frustrated because it was a problem – the storm door latch in her part of the house wasn’t working right – and I leaped to take care of it.

I do this with MP too. He’ll say “I don’t have a fork.” And I’ll stop whatever I’m doing and frigging go get him a fork. He doesn’t even has to ask for help. And it’s not like he’s not capable of getting the damn fork. He is. Granted, it takes a bit more effort for him to get it, but he’s totally capable. And often I don’t even ask him if he needs help, I drop whatever I’m doing to take care of it.

It’s not kind and loving, it’s ridiculous. Really, it dis-empowers them and I need to stop doing it. It’s submissive energy that’s being misdirected in the vanilla world.

Normally, I could spend a lot of time bemoaning these submissive tendencies gone awry. Today? I can shrug. Yeah, I do that. Yeah, it would be better if I didn’t. I can work on it. But today? It’s just the way I am.

I burned some sage. I thought about drumming circles and googled Djembe drums. I might buy one someday and take lessons (via free videos.) But not today. Today I’ll just listen to somebody else drumming and let it go.