A Snow Day of Mixed Emotions

This is a journal post, my next one will probably be a book review. For now, I'm just talking about my crazy snow day. . . . .

I'll start from the beginning, which was about 10:00 this morning. I was eating breakfast with my parents, eager to start my snow day (there was only about an inch or two of snow, but that's enough to sled and stuff). I had told my dad on Saturday a little about a biology current event that I was working on, and he brought it up asking me what the title of the article was. It's "Tracking Forest Creatures on the Move" and that's all I told my dad. *Sigh* He exploded at me, saying that an article about technology has absolutely no relation to biology and that I'd slacked off on it. He didn't even read the article or my current event paper. I was feeling stubborn, so I argued with him about it, saying that my article WAS related to biology. He screamed at me, threatening to keep my in my room for the snow day, cut me off from my friends, and make redo my entire paper for giving him lip.

I just stood there and took the yelling, I wasn't worried at all that he'd physically hurt me. He's never physically hurt me. I could feel a the angry tears well up in my eyes (I still don't think I deserved to be screamed at for my paper, I was downright proud of the job I did on it) but I held his furious gaze despite my tears. As soon as I could get away I fled to my room for about an hour, waiting for him to cool down and waiting for my tears to stop. My loved ones have more influence on me than they think. One harsh word from them can feel like a slap across the face. I can barely keep myself together when my dad screams at me for valid reasons, but trivial things like that affect me even more. Being yelled at by my father for small, unimportant things makes me feel worthless. Like he'll never really love me.

That's not true, though. I know that my father loves me. He put up with a lot of abuse from his parents as a kid, and I know he does his best to raise my brother and I differently. His explosions aren't a normal occurance, but when they happen I feel like a part of me is breaking inside. Maybe my heart. I don't know.

The last time he yelled at me like that it was far worse. I came downstairs one morning and he didn't think that I was dressed warmly enough for the weather. I thought I was dressed perfectly warmly enough. That earned me a lot yelling, and I actually ran from him that time. I'd like to lie and say that I just wanted to get away from his explosion, but that's not true. I was actually afraid that he'd hurt me that time. I couldn't control my tears as I ran to catch the bus.

I was lucky, though. It was so early in the morning that the darkness provided some privacy for me. Bubbles got on the bus one stop later, and the darkness hid my face. I managed to keep my voice even so that she wouldn't be able to tell that I was crying. I wasn't in the mood for pointless comfort.

I think she knew that something was wrong, but by the time it was light enough for her to see me I had myself under control and had discreetly cleaned up my face. I did something similar this morning. Once I had myself under control, I went back downstairs to face my dad. He had calmed down quite a bit and seemed far more reasonable. I showed him my paper, and he helped me make a few changes. It took almost no time at all to "fix" my paper. I was out of my house by about 11:00.

From there, my day improved drastically. I met up with Maddie, her little sisters, and Bubbles to go sledding. Maddie's mom drove us to a great hill for sledding, and we had tons of fun racing down the hills together.

Maddie participated in our brief snowball fights, but she's not one for sledding. Mostly it was just Bubbles, myself, and her little sisters. I must say, I'm a little sore from falling so much (there were several ramps) but that was some of the best sledding I've done all winter. Excluding Dare Devil Drop, of course : )

Maddie's mom dropped Bubbles and I off at Bubbles's house a few hours later. Bubbles's little brother, Nick, and Jake (not my brother, different Jake) were all there, and we had the house to ourselves. That was interesting.

We played Sardines (a form of hide-and-seek), listened to Jake's country music (which actually wasn't half bad), ate lunch, and played Clue. By then our snow clothes were dry enough from Bubbles's fireplace, so the five of us all went outside together.

They made me play football in the snow. Again : ( But I'm getting better! I actually scored one touchdown ^_^ My team still lost, but that's the best I've played yet.

We headed to Dare Devil Drop once we were done playing snow football, but we didn't sled down it. The view from the top of Dare Devil Drop is incredible, especially when it has snowed, so Bubbles and I went to simply gaze at the icy forest.

Her little brother, Jake, and Nick went to bounce on this trampoline out in the woods (Bubbles and I didn't participate, 'cause we know the girl who owns it) and after that brief escapade we all headed back to Jake's house.

There we played card games (I actually won a round of Spoons!) until it started to get dark, and I trudged home feeling quite peaceful. My morning of hurt was almost entirely forgotten, and my dad seemed to act like nothing had happened.

It still helps to write all my feelings out. I hope you guys didn't really read all that, it wasn't a very interesting post.

~I promise a better post next time!