But I'm a kid like everyone else.

I jumped right into a no good, very bad, horrible day today. I was in a mood, the kids were bickering, they weren't listening or getting ready when I told them to. I didn't sleep much last night, I was hungry, I had no coffee. There was a dead RAT on my bedroom floor and two lurking cats sniffing around it, looking proud and predatory, and that is not a pleasant thing to wake up to at all.

So when the kids started fighting over a BRUSH, when we have three other brushes they could use to brush their hair (not to mention that one kid had already brushed her hair, so what did she need the brush for?), I yell-roared "STOP IT!" And I did it on purpose. I actually wanted to see them freeze. I wanted to freak them out. Because it seemed like, at that moment, the only way to get them to stop fighting and actually listen to me.

It worked like a charm. Violet sat down and cried and Madeleine ran from the room, sobbing, "You shouldn't have done that! You shouldn't have yelled like that!" And she went to be in her room. And I felt that black cloud that was floating above my head descend and take firm hold and I haven't shaken it so far.

On the way to school in the dark, pouring rain, I played rain music. Damien Jurado's "Museum of Flight," Boxer Rebellion's "Diamonds," Bahama's "Lost in the Light," and Family of the Year's "Hero." And they all matched my mood so well:

From "Museum of Flight"
What did I learn/It's not that easy/When you get burned/And go on burning bright

From "Diamonds"
I'm no good next to diamonds/when they're too close I start to fade/Are you angry with me now/Are you angry 'cause I'm to blame?

From "Lost in the Light"
After so many words/Still nothing's heard/Don't know what we should do

And that brings me to "Hero," which not only matched my mood, it reduced me to the ugly cry. (Quiet and brief, so the girls didn't know.)
Let me go/I don't want to be your hero/I don't want to be the big man/I just want to fight like everyone else/Your masquerade/I don't want to be a part of your parade/Everyone deserves a chance to/Fight like everyone else

In the song, he's talking more about a man who's working at fulfilling the "American dream" for the sake of his family and about how hard that is -- but can't everyone relate to this? Responsibilities get hard and they weigh on you and you don't want to do it. You want to give up and just not care anymore.

And maybe you need that for yourself, just for a minute. Before you yell at your kids in the morning for fighting over a brush.