So my chores for today were:

1.) Clean windows (inside only, outside would be tomorrow).

2.) Wipe splots off kitchen floor.

That's it.

So my mom goes to have a nap, so I figure I'd do all my chores so as to look good in my mother's eyes when she woke up.

So I finish them all. I even swept both the diningroom and the kitchen, and mopped the whole kitchen floor instead of spot-wiping it.

I was quite proud of it.

So then I lay down to read a book, and after a while my mom wakes up.

"Don't forget to clean the windows, honey," she calls as she's puttering around upstairs.

"I already did 'em, mom!" say I, and there's this deathly pause.

"No you didn't!"

"I did too!"

"Well you didn't do the upstairs ones!"

"Oh, I thought I was only supposed to do the downstairs ones. I'll come and do 'em."

Simple misscommunication, right?

Yeeeeah no.

So my mother comes downstairs to take a look, and doesn't even *glance* at the kitchen floor (which is emaculate, by the way; I made doubly sure of that so she'd think better of me).

She marches from room to room, pointing out all the shortcomings of my work (a tiny splot here that I missed, a smudge left from my cleaning cloth, who knows what else she saw), then promptly tells me I'll never get hired with work like this, and basically I'm unemployable.

Great.

That's really reassuring.

And it hurt *more* because I really thought I'd done a good job! I was actually *proud* of my work, proud of getting it done quickly like she'd like, and going that extra mile, and doing what *she* wanted to the T and then some.

But no.

Apparently I'm unemployable.

And as she's lecturing me on this, I feel my eyes start to tear up like they always do when she starts lecturing me, and she snaps:

"Oh, don't *cry*, Rosemary."

"Don't," I snap, furious. "tell me not to cry! I can't *help* it." I think my face might have turned red.

I remember times when she used to tell me to stop crying or she'd *really* give me something to cry about. I remember one time in specific. I don't remember why she was mad, but I remember I was at the bottom of the basement stairs and she was at the top, and the arguement was just ending.

I must have been going to the office. I was crying, as usual.

And my mother snorted and told me to "stop crying or I'll *really* give you something to cry about", and then she left, and I remember that just upset me more and I cried even more.

Fuck.

I hate crying so much.

.

Rosie.

Before&After